Amnesty International : Rights Group’s Spirit Thrives at 25

The converted warehouse is guarded electronically now. The floors have carpets, and its records of imprisonments, torture and official murder are stored in computers. But Amnesty International’s spirit is unchanged after 25 years.

A statement recapitulating the group’s history for its 25th anniversary last week modestly omitted what many would regard as its greatest triumph: winning the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize. Amnesty is prouder of a thick file of thank-you letters from freed prisoners.

British lawyer Peter Benenson published a newspaper article on May 28, 1961, imploring the world to speak up for the global army of “prisoners of conscience” jailed solely for their beliefs and origins.

Within a month he had more than 1,000 offers of help, and the international human rights organization was in business. In its first year, Amnesty International established chapters in seven Western European countries, investigated 210 cases and generated 5,000 messages of support to 12 prisoners in different countries.

Big Budget Increase

Its first annual budget was about $13,000. This year it will spend about $9 million, most of it coming from dues paid by a membership it puts at more than 500,000.

Amnesty has dealt with approximately 30,000 cases since 1961, sends at least 50 teams a year to more than 30 countries and mobilizes its 60-country network of supporters on behalf of prisoners of conscience.

Researchers compose half of the 200 employees in the converted London factory that serves as its headquarters. They compile country-by-country annual reports on human rights violations, as well as studies of the use of the death penalty, torture and imprisonment without trial.

The strategy is to have chapters in every country possible, because the chapters work for prisoners of conscience only beyond their own borders. That helps protect them from government retribution.

Each Report Examined

Each report of a prisoner of conscience is examined to determine whether the person meets the criteria.

When Amnesty International concludes that a case is legitimate, it appeals to the government concerned. If that fails, chapters in other countries are asked to send telegrams. If that brings no results, members are asked to write letters of protest.

“The objective of an arrest is usually to silence the person involved,” said David Laulicht, who is in charge of Amnesty’s press department. “We seek to show the government concerned that the result of its action is not silence, but people all over the world speaking the prisoner’s name.”

Amnesty is a communist tool in the eyes of many right-wing governments and an agency of imperialism to those of the left. But it has no detectable bias.

Worldwide Targets

It will attack labor camps in the Soviet Union one day and the death penalty in the United States the next. Its targets range from Chile to China, South Africa to Nigeria, Israel to Syria.

Laulicht says the human rights group is meticulous about facts. “The information has to be irrefutable,” he said. “Amnesty International would be down the drain in a few minutes if the government we were reporting on could disprove our facts.”

Much of its information comes from interviews with victims of oppression. But Laulicht says informants also turn up inside the machinery of oppression. “Where there is a conscience, people will talk: policemen, prison wardens, officials,” he said.

A majority of U.N. member nations now have ratified an international treaty against political arrest, torture and execution. When Amnesty International was founded, there was no such treaty.