Peter James Henry Solomon Benenson

Peter James Henry Solomon Benenson, British attorney and human rights activist (born July 31, 1921, London, Eng.—died Feb. 25, 2005, Oxford, Eng.), founded Amnesty International (AI) in 1961 after reading in a news story that two students in Portugal had been imprisoned by that country’s dictatorial government for proposing a toast to freedom. The event spurred Benenson to submit a full-page article in The Observer newspaper entitled “The Forgotten Prisoners,” in which he promoted an “Appeal for Amnesty,” a yearlong letter-writing campaign to repressive governments on behalf of what he termed “prisoners of conscience.” Support for Benenson’s campaign quickly spread, and by 2005 Amnesty International was the world’s largest human rights organization, with membership soaring to 1.8 million in more than 160 countries. Benenson formally resigned from AI in 1966, but he continued to work for international human rights. In recognition of its humanitarian efforts, AI was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1977.