Prisoners of Conscience
by Arnold Winkleried
Amnesty International
Amnesty International was founded in 1961 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for its efforts to promote global observance of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a worldwide movement of people acting on the conviction that governments must not deny individuals their basic Human Rights.
The group's mandate:
Amnesty International works to promote awareness of, and adherence to, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other human rights accords.
It also pressures governments and non-governmental organizations to
* release all prisoners of conscience: people confined because of their beliefs
or because of their ethnic origin, sex, color or language, who have not used
or called for violence.
* give all prisoners whose cases have a political aspect a fair trial within
a reasonable time.
* abolish the death penalty, torture, and other cruel treatment of all
prisoners.
* end all extrajudicial executions and "disappearances."