Amnesty International marks 50 years of fighting for free speech

[alp227]

Source: The Observer

At yesterday's event, the toasts were to freedom, and the guest list was global. Former prisoners of conscience, activists and supporters, including the children's author Michael Morpurgo and the actors Eva Birthistle, Tim McInnerny and Julian Rhind-Tutt, sat beneath banners illustrated with the faces of some of the 50,000 prisoners of conscience whose ordeals in the jails and torture rooms of corrupt regimes have been highlighted by Amnesty and its three million members. In red pen, scrawled across one banners, that of Eynulla Fatullayev, were the buoyant words "just released". On Wednesday, a day after a mass "tweet" protest, Fatullayev, the editor of a newspaper in Azerbijan who had been jailed for criticising government policies, was freed on a presidential pardon. He immediately thanked Amnesty, which supported him from the beginning, saying: "In my opinion you saved me. Thank you to all those who tweeted."

Salil Shetty, the director of Amnesty, said in his speech that Benenson was perhaps the first "Yes-we-can man", who saw that the abuse of state power could be tackled by a social movement that has now embraced tweeting and Facebook. "Social media re-energises the idea of the global citizen," he said, adding that when, on May 28, 1961, Benenson wrote in the Observer about the fate of "forgotten prisoners", it was a direct appeal to individuals to take action.

"It was only supposed to be a year-long campaign," said one of Amnesty's longest-term supporters, Dan Jones, 71.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/29/amnesty-international-marks-50th-birthday

[Odin2005]

1. K&R

[Forkboy]

2. K&R

[Violet_Crumble]

3. I'm proud to be a member of Amnesty International...

The work it does is so important and valuable that I'm still gobsmacked when I come across DUers who attack Amnesty International and don't support it.

[Ohio Joe]

4. One of the never ending battles - K&R - nt