Amnesty International Snapshot
With nearly half a century of work behind it, Amnesty International strives to promote human rights around the world. It has more than 2.2 million members, chapters in more than 80 countries, and supporters and donors from more than 150 countries and territories in every region of the world. Having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, the organization continues to campaign against such things as torture, the death penalty, and other human rights violations. British lawyer Peter Benenson, who died in 2005, founded Amnesty International as a letter-writing campaign in 1961 as a reaction to the incarceration of two Portuguese students who had toasted to freedom.
