Society

Amnesty International was founded in London at the end of May 1961, two months later the German section was set up in Cologne. At the moment there are 2.8 million people in over 100 countries supporting the work done by the world’s largest human rights organisation; over 100,000 of these supporters are to be found in Germany alone. There is no doubt about it - Amnesty International has become an institution – and a byword for global justice.

1961 was a particularly turbulent year. On 12th April, just one day after the start of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in his spaceship Vostok 1 and became the first man in space, boosting the Soviet Union’s international prestige no end. Five days later a band of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, went ashore in the Bay of Pigs, only to be driven back by Fidel Castro’s soldiers. On 15th June in East Germany the Head of State, Walter Ulbricht, declared that there was no intention to build a wall; then during the night on 12th/13th August GDR security forces sealed off the checkpoints to West Berlin and started to build a wall along the sector boundary between East and West. In France the OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète), an underground movement founded by French officers at the beginning of the year, started its campaign of assassination attempts and bombings to protest against de Gaulle’s policy on Algeria. And at the XXI Party Conference of the CPSU in October in Russia Nikita Khrushchev settled some old scores with Stalin.

Here’s to liberty!

In the spring of 1961 two Portuguese students in a restaurant in Lisbon drank a toast to liberty and were immediately arrested – the mere mentioning of the word in public was banned at that time in Portugal. They were sentenced to seven years in prison. A lawyer, Peter Benenson, read about this and a little later published an article in “The Observer” newspaper entitled “The Forgotten Prisoners”. In it he appealed to readers to take up the cause of political prisoners by writing letters to the relevant governments demanding their release. Other European newspapers also printed the article. The birth of an idea!

Benenson’s “Appeal for Amnesty” on 28th May 1961 has become the founding date of the organisation that soon expanded and became more and more professional. An International Council was set up as its uppermost authority. The day-to-day business was dealt with by an International Executive Committee that did the groundwork for the International Secretariat that had a full-time staff under the management of an elected Secretary General. New branches or “sections” were established in many countries, using the same organisation set-up as in London. The German section, at present the world’s largest, started operating in July 1961; the author, Carola Stern, and the journalist, Gerd Ruge, were among the founder members.

Independent and impartial

The actual work is of course done by the members. In many places all over the world Amnesty International groups have come into being – at the start often just a one-man or one-woman-show – that take over the long-term monitoring of a political prisoner. Alongside these local groups “coordination groups” are set up in the course of time. These are groups that work on certain countries or certain human rights issues. In Germany alone at the moment there are about 700 local, youth, regional and special issue groups in action. They collect information, write letters to governments and prepare online campaigns “Against Forgetting”, organise spontaneous mass demonstrations and raise funds with the help of donations.

Right from the start independence and strict impartiality have been the basic tenets of the human rights work done by Amnesty International. The organisation receives no funding from either government, political parties or business associations. It lives off the contributions paid in by its huge numbers of members and from donations. There are about 16,000 regular sponsors and some 42,000 donors in Germany at the moment supporting the work of Amnesty International; their contributions account for about two-thirds of their overall income. As Amnesty International is all about safeguarding human rights, neither the type of political system nor the political leanings of the victim or the supporter play a role. Incidentally the individual groups adhere to the principle of not working on cases in their own country. This is the only way they can guarantee integrity and credibility – Amnesty International’s symbolic capital – and use it to get their message across to the public.

The curse of success

The results are impressive: since 1961 Amnesty International has supported the cause of human rights abuse victims in over 46,000, often with great success. Many prisoners have been released, even more have been given lighter sentences; death sentences have been commuted, torture and abuse have been stopped, unfair trials have been re-opened. According to their own information about 40 per cent of the “urgent actions” procedures, initiated in 1973, have been successful. No mean feat no matter how you look at it!

No other non-government organisation has managed to change the awareness of the global public as drastically as Amnesty International has, no other has made itself so unpopular with governments. No other aid organisation has had to come in for so much criticism. At the time of the Cold War it was accused by both sides of being infiltrated by the respective secret services. For the governments that were attacked by Amnesty International the organisation was going too far, for the movers and shakers of the 1968 student revolt it was not going far enough.

Today however it is above all the global political framework and the organisation’s success that make life difficult for Amnesty International. Countries like China and Russia accuse the organisation of being too one-sided. Other people have criticised the extension of the organisation’s mandate, initiated in August 2001, that now includes the supporting of economic, social and cultural rights and – according to critics – blurs the organisation’s profile. Instead of focusing on its core product, the protection of civil and political rights, Amnesty is gradually turning into a “pick and mix shop for human rights” and because of this is going to lose its credibility and influence in the long term. Furthermore there are also internal critics who accuse the organisation of being more interested in publicity, recruiting members and collecting donations rather than working on human rights violations. If these accusations prove to be well founded, Amnesty would then have a real problem. That is why heartfelt birthday wishes are called for – all the best Amnesty International!