'The Truth Will Set You Free': The Making of Amnesty International

Although I was no longer at the Bar I would go down to Chambers each day to lend a hand with the work of 'Justice'. It was on the 19th November 1960 as I was reading in the Tube rather uncharacteristically 'The Daily Telegraph' that I came on a short paragraph that related how two Portuguese students had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment for no other offence than having drunk a toast to liberty in a Lisbon restaurant. Perhaps because I am particularly attached to liberty, perhaps because I am fond of wine this news-item produced a righteous indignation in me that transcended normal bounds. At Trafalgar Square station I got out of the train and went straight into the Church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields [sic]. There I sat and pondered on the situation. I felt like marching down to the Portuguese Embassy to make an immediate protest, but what would have been the use? Walking up the Strand towards the Temple my mind dwelt on World Refugee Year, the first of these years dedicated to international action. What a success it had been! The DP [Displaced Persons] camps in Europe had been finally emptied. Could not the same thing be done for the inmates of concentration camps, I speculated? What about a World Year against political imprisonment? (Peter Benenson, 1983)1