ABSTRACT
Peter Benenson built on years of human rights activism to create Amnesty International, an influential organization dedicated to liberating those people unjusdy oppressed for their beliefs. He attended Eton, one of Britain's most prestigious private schools, and went on to study history at Oxford University. Benenson committed himself to political causes early in life, forming a committee at Eton in 1937 to support children orphaned by the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War and another group in 1938 dedicated to rescuing young Jewish boys from Nazi Germany. In November 1960, Benenson read a newspaper report about two students who had been arrested by the military dictatorship in Portugal, and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for publicly toasting the idea of freedom. The tactics of Benenson's original Amnesty International were simple: a cell of three Amnesty International supporters coordinated by a national chapter would “adopt” three prisoners of conscience.
