Last updated 4/27/2006
Created by:
Maggie Cooke and
Fanny Tsang
CS110- Spring, 2006
Wellesley College's chapter of Amnesty International is a part of a larger network of student groups in the United States. Hundreds of communities and schools across the country meet and take actions on behalf of victims of human rights violations.
Wellesley's Chapter of Amnesty International dates back to approximately twenty years ago. Since then, students at Wellesley have been very active participants in Amnesty International's causes. Wellesley College's chapter is one of the registered Amnesty International student groups. The Wellesley chapter is in constant contact with other larger Amnesty chapters.
Amnesty International works to secure the release of all prisoners of conscience (those people detained for their religious beliefs, race, sex, language, religion, or ethnic origin, and who have neither used nor advocated violence); fair and prompt trails for all political prisoners; and an end to torture and executions in all cases. Amnesty International also undertakes research and action with the aim of preserving and restoring all human rights under the belief that each individual and group is entitled to physical and mental dignity and safety, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination.
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement to campaign for internationally recognized human rights. It is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with over 1.8 million members worldwide and supporters from over 150 countries around the world. People join together and work for a world where everyone enjoys human rights.
Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961 by a British lawyer named Peter Benenson. Benenson was outraged when he learned that two students were sentenced to seven years in prison for daring to toast freedom in a Lisbon Bar. He published an article in the London Observer and asked readers to write letters to the Portuguese officials demanding the students' release. The article created a wave of support for the students and prisoners' rights.
Amnesty International's vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.
Information and photos taken from Amnesty International-USA website