"The Forgotten Prisoners" is an article by

Peter Benenson Peter Benenson (born Peter James Henry Solomon; 31 July 1921 – 25 February 2005) was a British barrister, human rights activist and the founder of the human rights group Amnesty International (AI). He refused all honours for most of his li ...

published in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

'' on 28 May 1961.Peter Benenson.
The Forgotten Prisoners
(abridged), ''

'', 28 May 1961. Retrieved 28 May 2011. Citing the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...

articles 18 and 19, it announced a campaign on "Appeal for Amnesty, 1961" and called for "common action". The article also launched the book ''

Persecution 1961 Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

'' and its stories of doctor

Agostinho Neto António Agostinho da Silva Neto (17 September 1922 – 10 September 1979) was an Angolan politician and poet. He served as the first president of Angola from 1975 to 1979, having led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) ...

, philosopher

Constantin Noica Constantin Noica (; – 4 December 1987) was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics ...

, lawyer

Antonio Amat Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular m ...

and Ashton Jones and Patrick Duncan. Benenson reputedly wrote his article after having learnt that two Portuguese students from

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

were imprisoned in Portugal for raising a toast to freedom.Tracy McVeigh.
Amnesty International marks 50 years of fighting for free speech
, ''

'', 29 May 2011. Retrieved 29 May 2011. The article was reprinted in newspapers across the world and provoked a flood of responses from the readers, marshalling groups in several countries to examine

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

abuses.Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy.
The fight for human rights: Amnesty and the Observer
, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', 29 May 2011. Retrieved 29 May 2011. While, in 2015, the original story still remains to be verified, the appeal marks the beginning of Amnesty International, founded in London the same year following the publicationThe History of Amnesty International
, amnesty.org. Retrieved 28 May 2011. after Benenson enlisted a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

, a Liberal and a Labour MP.

References

Newspaper articles Human rights 1961 in the United Kingdom {{UK-newspaper-stub