Peter Benenson: In the first half of the 20th century political protest was concerned largely with justice for social groups excluded from privilege and power, rather than individuals victimised by a repressive state.
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. 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. Benenson's recollection was that in London in November 1960 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. He discussed with a few friends the possibility of a world year against political imprisonment, possibly to culminate on December 10th, Human Rights Day, in 1961, when it was hoped that some governments could be persuaded to release a number of prisoners.
On May 28th that year, the Observer carried a full-page article by Benenson headlined "The Forgotten Prisoners". He had already begun work on a book published by Penguin, Persecution 1961, 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 was overwhelming. People wrote asking what they could do, which 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 allocated three prisoners, respectively from the West, the Iron Curtain countries and 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. 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.
Inevitably there was a need for institutional support - a library of prisoners, with the maximum information about them, paid staff, fund-raising and rules about the involvement of members. Amnesty had become a movement.
It became necessary to define those for whom Amnesty was working, and there was much debate as to who was a "prisoner of conscience", and whether the term could include those whose protest exceeded the mere expression of an opinion.
Groups were formed in other countries. The first international conference came at the end of 1961, and an international executive was established. All this alongside the daily campaigning for the release of specific prisoners.
Local groups, however, complained of the service which they received from the centre. Benenson realised that the movement was overstretched and became depressed about progress. In 1964 there was discord between him and other Amnesty leaders, particularly Seán MacBride, the best-known figure in the movement.
By 1967, funding had failed to keep pace with the need, and Amnesty staff lived under perpetual threat that there would be no funds to pay their salaries. Yet between June 1966 and June 1967, the number of groups increased from 410 to 550, and Amnesty was accorded consultative status with Unesco. Benenson had become tired and during 1966 his health had suffered. He began to withdraw from the organisational work and at the end of the year he resigned.
Amnesty has continued to grow, to the point where it now has more than 1.8 million members and supporters around the world.
Born in London to a mother from a Russian-Jewish background and an army officer father who died while he was young, Benenson was tutored privately by WH Auden before going to Eton. There his social conscience was awakened when he established a relief committee for refugees from the Spanish civil war and then participated in the rescue of Jewish children from Nazi Germany.
He read history at Balliol College Oxford, but his academic progress was interrupted by the second World War. After a period at the Ministry of Information, he was recruited for military intelligence work at Bletchley Park.
While waiting for demobilisation in 1946, he read for the bar and practised as a barrister. But his interests lay in politics. He joined the Labour Party and stood unsuccessfully for parliament. He was active in the Society of Labour Lawyers, but his passion was not evoked by questions of law reform, which he felt failed to capture the imagination of the public.
In 1947, sponsored by the TUC, he had attended a political trial in Spain and helped to found Labour's Spanish Democrats defence committee. In 1956, high-profile political trials in South Africa and Hungary persuaded him that questions of individual freedom, on which lawyers were particularly qualified to speak, should transcend party differences. In that year he participated in the founding of Justice, the British section of the International Commission of Jurists.
In 1958 he converted to Roman Catholicism, and his new faith became a dominant influence in his life. He ceased to look to politics for a solution to the world's problems and concluded that the answers lay in individual regeneration.
The following year he developed a digestive illness, ceased to practise law and moved to Italy to convalesce. While recuperating, he became increasingly interested in the Moral Rearmament movement, founded by Frank Buchman in 1938. Although he never became actively involved, he recognised an echo of his own thinking in its emphasis on improving the world, not by collective action, but by the commitment of individuals.
In 1977 Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Governments continue to draw on its expertise and prisoners continue to be released in response to its efforts. Its campaign against torture has achieved worldwide support and its symbol of a candle in barbed wire - Benenson had in mind the Chinese proverb "Better light a candle than curse the darkness" - is universally recognised.
One of his last acts for Amnesty was to write a message launching the appeal to set up its recently opened £10 million Human Rights Action Centre in London, to accommodate its growing staff and to provide educational and campaign facilities for activists.
He is survived by his wife Susan, a daughter, a son, and two daughters from his first marriage.
Peter James Henry Solomon Benenson: born July 31st, 1921; died February 25th, 2005