Who is peter benenson

In Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its tireless fight against injustice. Former prisoner of conscience Julio de Pena Valdez, a trade union leader in the Dominican Republic, has spoken of the impact of an Amnesty letter-writing campaign.

Then the next letters came and the prison director came to see me. When the next pile of letters arrived, the director got in touch with his superior. The letters kept coming and coming - 3, of them.

The president was informed. He later converted to Catholicism. His flair for controversy emerged early, when his complaint to the headmaster of Eton about the poor quality of the school's food prompted a letter to his mother warning of her son's 'revolutionary tendencies. At age 16, he launched his first campaign: to get school support, during the Spanish Civil War, for the newly-formed Spanish Relief Committee which was helping Republican war orphans.

He himself 'adopted' one of the babies, helping to pay for its support. His concern about political imprisonment and mistreatment was inspired by Arthur Koestler's Spanish Testament, which described the horrors of imprisonment and threatened execution by the Fascists. It was this concern that led to his next campaign - the plight of Jews who had fled from Hitler's Germany. After leaving Eton, he helped his politically committed mother find homes in various countries for refugee children who arrived in London.

The Trades Union Congress sent him to Spain as its observer at the trials of trade unionists in the early Fifties. He was appalled by what he saw in the courtrooms and in the prisons. In one instance he was so outraged by the proceedings that he drew up a list of complaints with which he confronted the trial judge over dinner. Political parties undertook campaigns on behalf of specific victims with whom they were in sympathy, but there was a need to emphasise not the cause for which the prisoners suffered, but the fact that they were imprisoned simply for a belief.

Not only could this factor serve as a focus for all the campaigns, but it could enlist large numbers of people who did not see themselves as political activists. The hour found the man - Peter Benenson, the prime mover of Amnesty International , who has died aged 83 from pneumonia, following a long illness.

The incident which triggered the activation of these ideas is enshrined in Amnesty folklore, even if the details may be uncertain. Benenson's recollection was that on a Tube journey in November he read a newspaper item about two Portuguese students who were dining privately in a Lisbon restaurant, and drank a toast to liberty.

They were overheard, and their gesture led to prison sentences. Benenson decided to organise a protest by those who were rarely given to expressing their indignation. The World Refugee Year campaign that was drawing to a close had demonstrated the potential of public opinion.

He discussed with a few friends the possibility of a world year against political imprisonment, possibly to culminate on December 10, Human Rights Day, in , when it was hoped that some governments could be persuaded to release a number of prisoners. The campaign was called Appeal For Amnesty, a title borrowed from the campaign specifically for the release of political prisoners in Spain, conducted by the political left there.

Benenson had already begun work on a book, later published by Penguin, entitled Persecution , which consisted of case studies of political prisoners from various regimes, concentrating on the consequences for the individuals concerned. The reaction to the Observer article surprised everyone. People wrote asking what they could do, and this led to what became Amnesty's early distinguishing mark. Those working in the same office, teaching in the same school, or worshipping at the same church, were encouraged to organise themselves into "threes groups".

Each group was allocated three prisoners, respectively from the western hemisphere, the then Iron Curtain countries, and what have since come to be called the developing countries.

They would lobby for the prisoners' release, write to those who were permitted to receive letters, and send such gifts and comforts as could be delivered. Thus every member might be working for at least one prisoner whose views he or she did not share. What was at issue was not the opinions which they had expressed, but their right to express them.

This was a new form of political action, operating on a person-to-person basis. The strong relationships forged between prisoners and group members, even when they could not meet, introduced a new dimension to individual involvement.

The one-year effort became permanent, initially attracting thousands of international letter-writers eager to enforce the largely ignored Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Benenson and his followers not only wrote letters, but they also traveled internationally to investigate cases and make publicized direct appeals for the release of prisoners.

The logo for Amnesty International is a candle surrounded by barbed wire. The organization -- which spawned similar groups, including Human Rights Watch and Global Witness -- has fought repressive governments and politicians, worked to verify and stamp out torture, opposed the death penalty and criticized the current war in Iraq.

This was a man whose conscience shone in a cruel and terrifying world, who believed in the power of ordinary people to bring about extraordinary change and, by creating Amnesty International, he gave each of us the opportunity to make a difference.

Born in England on July 31, , to a British army colonel and his wife, Benenson was tutored privately by poet W. Auden before enrolling at Eton. He waged his first campaign for human rights -- specifically for better food -- in grammar school. Benenson studied history at Oxford, and joined the British army during World War II, working in the Ministry of Information press office and then in code breaking. His efforts led to the founding of Justice, a Britain-based organization for legal and human rights.