AT ITS birth 50 years ago Amnesty International’s founder, British lawyer Peter Benenson, was driven by a simple, some said naive, idea. By writing letters directly to dictators, officials, politicians, judges, or soldiers, ordinary people could prick consciences at best, or at least warn that impunity for human rights violations was no longer guaranteed.
Imprisoned prisoners of conscience, many facing torture in the darkest cells around the globe, would find a voice through others and some small comfort in the knowledge that their plight was known. Maybe jailers would ease back the whip hand, maybe the day of release would be brought forward. There is evidence that in hundreds of cases that has happened.
The “diplomacy of conscience” was born, a new form of public engagement with international campaigning in the form of an organisation that now boasts 2.8 million members and supporters in 150 countries. Now the world’s largest non-governmental rights organisation, it has won a Nobel Peace Prize and UN observer status, and its authority, notably its commitment to scrupulous, evidence-based reporting, is widely acknowledged.
The idea of universal values and norms is at Amnesty’s core – but it is the source of accusations of cultural and western bias. The group has also become increasingly politically embattled as it expanded its remit to the causes and contexts of oppression.
In 1985, it took on the issues of refugees, torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances; in 1989, the death penalty; and by 1996, was campaigning for a permanent International Criminal Court. By 2001 it spoke of pursuing the “full spectrum of human rights”, including economic, social and cultural rights. That has inevitably led the group into controversy, notably on abortion with the Catholic Church, and to accusations of bias against governments as diverse as those of Israel, the US and Russia. Yet, although a difficult line to tread, and sometimes crossed, Amnesty retains its integrity and authority.
To mark its 50th birthday and support its important work campaigning for prisoners of conscience, The Irish Times will publish from today, as we did 25 years ago, a monthly series of appeals on behalf of prisoners from all over the world. The common thread remains that all are paying the price for their willingness to speak out on issues that are uncomfortable to ruling authorities, do so without advocating violence, and are imprisoned for the most part after trials that flagrantly disregarded universal rights norms. They deserve our support.