Timeline

• 1961
  The forgotten prisoners

  Peter Benenson launched the Appeal for Amnesty after publishing “The Forgotten Prisoners”, calling on ordinary people to act for prisoners of conscience around the world.

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• 1962
  A permanent movement takes shape

  What began as a one-year appeal developed into a permanent international organisation built around research, letter-writing and political impartiality.

• 1972–73
  Campaign for the Abolition of Torture

  Amnesty launched its first global campaign against torture, combining detailed research with coordinated international pressure for its abolition.

• 1973
  Political Prisoners in South Vietnam

  Amnesty published its major report examining civilian political detainees, prison conditions and allegations of torture in South Vietnam.

• 1973
  The first Urgent Action

  Thousands of supporters were mobilised on behalf of detained Brazilian academic Luiz Basilio Rossi, establishing a campaigning method Amnesty still uses today.

• 1977
  The Nobel Peace Prize

  Amnesty received the Nobel Peace Prize for its defence of human dignity and its work on behalf of people subjected to imprisonment, violence and torture.

• 1984
  The second campaign against torture

  Amnesty launched its second worldwide torture campaign, shifting greater attention towards prevention through its 12-point programme.

• 1991
  Beyond the prisoner of conscience

  A widened mandate strengthened Amnesty's work on abuses beyond imprisonment, including violations committed by armed opposition groups.

• 2000
  Campaign Against Torture

  A third global torture campaign focused on prevention, ending impunity and confronting the discrimination that left particular groups vulnerable to abuse.

• 2001
  Human rights become indivisible

  Amnesty adopted a broader mission embracing economic, social and cultural rights alongside its established work on civil and political rights.

• 2005
  Protect the Human

  Amnesty International UK launched a nationwide initiative using music, art, film and everyday participation to involve more people in defending human rights.

• 2014
  Freedom Candles

  Sculpted candles depicting human rights abuses burned away to reveal bronze symbols of hope, turning Amnesty's oldest emblem into a new campaigning medium.

• Present day
  The candle still burns

  Amnesty continues to investigate abuses and mobilise millions of people worldwide across a broad range of internationally recognised human rights.

Brief history

Before the candle wrapped in barbed wire (1950s - 61)

Before Amnesty International existed, Peter Benenson was already using the law to challenge political repression. During the 1950s, the British barrister observed political trials in Cyprus and elsewhere. In Cyprus he met Eric Baker, a Quaker peace activist whose research and contacts helped shape Benenson’s developing concern for people imprisoned because of their beliefs. Baker’s Quaker commitment to practical action against suffering was one of several influences present at Amnesty’s birth.

The forgotten prisoners (1961)

On 28 May 1961, The Observer published Benenson’s article “The Forgotten Prisoners”. Amnesty’s own founding account centres on his outrage at the imprisonment of two Portuguese students after a toast to liberty, but the article ranged much wider, describing people jailed around the world for peacefully expressing political or religious beliefs. Benenson called them “prisoners of conscience” and asked readers to write on their behalf as part of a one-year Appeal for Amnesty.

The response travelled far beyond Britain. Newspapers reprinted the appeal, volunteers came forward and local groups began adopting prisoners from contrasting political systems, deliberately preventing the campaign from becoming identified with either side of the Cold War.

The candle begins to burn (1961 - 69)

What had been planned as a temporary appeal became a permanent organisation. Amnesty developed a method based on research, publicity and ordinary people writing directly to governments about individual prisoners. Its candle wrapped in barbed wire became the movement’s enduring symbol: a small light surrounded by repression, but not extinguished by it.

Growth was rapid. Within its first decade Amnesty had 18 national sections and 850 groups in more than 27 countries, while gaining consultative status with international bodies including the United Nations. Its central concern remained prisoners of conscience, but investigations into individual cases increasingly exposed wider patterns of abuse.

The flame grows stronger (1972 - 77)

On Human Rights Day in December 1972, Amnesty launched its first Campaign for the Abolition of Torture. During 1973 the campaign gathered international momentum through research, public mobilisation and a major conference in Paris. That same year Amnesty published Political Prisoners in South Vietnam and issued its first Urgent Action, mobilising supporters after the detention of Brazilian academic Luiz Basilio Rossi.

These methods pushed Amnesty beyond campaigning solely for individual prisoners. Research reports, emergency appeals and coordinated international pressure became central to its work. In 1977 Amnesty was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to worldwide respect for human rights. That year it also intensified its opposition to the death penalty, another campaign that would become part of its permanent work.

Beyond the prisoner of conscience (1980s - 90s)

Amnesty’s work continued to widen. In 1984 it launched its second Campaign for the Abolition of Torture, accompanied by Torture in the Eighties and a 12-point programme focused increasingly on preventing torture rather than simply exposing it. During the following years its concerns expanded to include disappearances, extrajudicial killings and a wider range of abuses. In 1991 it significantly extended its work on abuses committed by armed opposition groups.

The prisoner of conscience remained central, but Amnesty was becoming something broader: an organisation concerned not only with who was imprisoned, but with the systems and practices that allowed human rights abuses to continue.

Human rights without borders (2000 - 09)

In October 2000 Amnesty launched its third worldwide anti-torture drive, the Campaign Against Torture, concentrating on prevention, impunity and discrimination. The following year it broadened its mission to encompass all human rights, allowing much greater involvement with economic, social and cultural rights alongside the civil and political rights that had shaped its earlier decades.

New campaigning methods appeared alongside the old ones. In Britain, Protect the Human was launched in 2005, using music, art, film and everyday participation to draw a wider public into human rights activism. The tools were changing, but the underlying method remained familiar: make distant abuses visible and give ordinary people a practical way to respond.

The candle still burns (2010s - present)

That connection between symbol and action remained visible in the 2014 Freedom Candles initiative, in which sculpted candles representing human rights abuses burned away to reveal bronze images of the change campaigners hoped to achieve.

Amnesty today describes itself as a movement of more than 10 million people across over 150 countries and territories. Its work now stretches across a far wider field than the organisation Benenson and Baker helped create in 1961. Yet more than six decades after a newspaper appeal asked readers to act for strangers in prison, the principle remains recognisable: human rights become harder to violate in silence when someone, somewhere, is prepared to bear witness.

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