Peter Benenson

"Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done."

These were the words of Peter Benenson, wrtiting in The Observer on 28 May 1961. His campaign was intended to run for a year - it has led to an organisation with more than 1.8 million members and supporters: Amnesty International. And probably the campaign will have to continue for a long time, until maybe one day there will be no more torture and executions. But unfortunately the campaign has to continue without Peter Benenson.

Peter Benenson died on Friday, 25 February 2005 at the age of 83.