In 1961, a British lawyer named Peter Benenson (1921 - 2005) learned that two Portuguese students had been sentenced to seven years in prison for raising a toast to freedom in a Lisbon bar. Horrified and outraged, Benenson published an article titled The Forgotten Prisoners in the British newspaper, The Observer on May 28, 1961 asking readers to write letters to Portuguese officials demanding the students’ release. The article unleashed a wave of support for the students and other prisoners of conscience. Benenson launched his campaign, Appeal for Amnesty 1961 to protest against the authority’s indifference to the “forgotten prisoners” - men and women imprisoned for their political or religious beliefs. Within a month, more than a thousand readers had sent letters of support, offers of practical help and details about many more prisoners of conscience. Within six months, a brief publicity effort was being developed into a permanent, international movement. Within a year the new organization had sent delegations to four countries to make representations on behalf of prisoners and had taken up 210 cases. Its members had organized national bodies in seven countries. Therefore Amnesty International (AI) was born. In 1977, the movement’s efforts were recognized through the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1978, it was honoured with a United Nations Human Rights Award. It can be said that AI started its campaign in 1961 with a newspaper article about two prisoners of conscience. More than 40 years later, even when AI is dealing with atrocities on a massive scale, it till tries to describe the fate of individual victims in the report, to give the stories of their lives. AI tries to show the individual human suffering behind the headline statistics. Today, Amnesty International is the largest human rights organization in the world. AI has a varied network of members and supporters around the world. At the latest count, there were more than 1.8 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories in every region of the world. Although they come from many different backgrounds and have widely different political and religious beliefs, they are united by a determination to work for a world where everyone enjoys human rights.