[6] In what he called "The Forgotten Prisoners" and "An Appeal for Amnesty", which appeared on the front page of the British newspaper The Observer, Benenson wrote about two students who toasted to freedom in Portugal and four other people who had been jailed in other nations because of their beliefs.

[9][10] According to Benenson's own account, he was travelling on the London Underground on 19 November 1960 when he read that two Portuguese students from Coimbra had been sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in Portugal for allegedly "having drunk a toast to liberty".

[13] In consultation with other writers, academics and lawyers and, in particular, Alec Digges, they wrote via Louis Blom-Cooper to David Astor, editor of The Observer newspaper, who, on 28 May 1961, published Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners".

The article described these violations occurring, on a global scale, in the context of restrictions to press freedom, to political oppositions, to timely public trial before impartial courts, and to asylum.

[29] Amnesty International became involved in the legal battle over Augusto Pinochet, former Chilean dictator, who sought to avoid extradition to Spain to face charges after his arrest in London in 1998 by the Metropolitan Police.

[35][36] During the first half of the new decade, Amnesty International turned its attention to violence against women, controls on the world arms trade, concerns surrounding the effectiveness of the UN, and ending torture.

In 2007, AI's executive committee decided to support access to abortion "within reasonable gestational limits...for women in cases of rape, incest or violence, or where the pregnancy jeopardizes a mother's life or health".

[46] Among those who spoke up for Sahgal were Salman Rushdie,[47] Member of Parliament Denis MacShane, Joan Smith, Christopher Hitchens, Martin Bright, Melanie Phillips, and Nick Cohen.

[45][48][49][50][51][52][53] In July 2011, Amnesty International celebrated its 50 years with an animated short film directed by Carlos Lascano, produced by Eallin Motion Art and Dreamlife Studio, with music by Academy Award-winner Hans Zimmer and nominee Lorne Balfe.

[54] In August 2012, Amnesty International's chief executive in India sought an impartial investigation, led by the United Nations, to render justice to those affected by war crimes in Sri Lanka.

The debate on the motion formed a consensus that Amnesty should fight "discrimination against all ethnic and religious groups", but the division among delegates was over the issue of whether it would be appropriate for an anti-racism campaign with a "single focus".

[62] In August 2015, The Times reported that Yasmin Hussein, then Amnesty's director of faith and human rights and previously its head of international advocacy and a prominent representative at the United Nations, had "undeclared private links to men alleged to be key players in a secretive network of global Islamists", including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Since joining the council, Saudi Arabia's dire human rights record at home has continued to deteriorate and the coalition it leads has unlawfully killed and injured thousands of civilians in the conflict in Yemen.

However, in order to circumvent the FCRA regulations, Amnesty UK remitted large amounts of money to four entities registered in India by classifying it as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

[83] On 14 May 2019, Amnesty International filed a petition with the District Court of Tel Aviv, Israel, seeking a revocation of the export licence of surveillance technology firm NSO Group.

However, AI does not oppose the political use of violence in itself since The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in its preamble, foresees situations in which people could "be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression".

[128] In 2012, Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty UK's campaign manager whose main focus is Syria, listed several countries as "regimes who abuse peoples' basic universal rights": Burma, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Sudan.

Evidence of bullying, harassment, sexism and racism was uncovered after two 2018 suicides were investigated: that of 30-year Amnesty veteran Gaëtan Mootoo in Paris in May 2018; and that of 28-year-old intern Rosalind McGregor in Geneva in July 2018.

[162] This included Anna Neistat, who was a senior manager directly implicated in the independent report on the suicide of Amnesty's West Africa researcher Gaëtan Mootoo in the organization's Paris office.

Shaista Aziz, a co-founder of the feminist advocacy group NGO Safe Space, questioned on Twitter why the "world's leading human rights organisation" was employing such contracts.

In June 2022, a 106-page independent investigation by the management consultancy firm Global HPO Ltd (GHPO) concluded that Amnesty International UK (AIUK) exhibits institutional and systemic racism.

The alghemeiner reports that AIUK stated it "accepted all the recommendations," and that the "press' insistence on describing Amnesty as a 'leading human rights group' is furthermore problematic given the anti-Jewish racism that the NGO has displayed for years.

Amnesty apologized for making the decision and stated that "by confirming Navalny's status as prisoner of conscience, we are not endorsing his political programme, but are highlighting the urgent need for his rights, including access to independent medical care, to be recognized and acted upon by the Russian authorities.

In the same year, Benenson wrote to Minister of State for the Colonies Lord Lansdowne a proposal to prop up a "refugee counsellor" on the border between the Bechuanaland Protectorate and apartheid South Africa.

AI vowed that in future, it "must not only be independent and impartial but must not be put into a position where anything else could even be alleged" and the Foreign Office cautioned that "for the time being our attitude to Amnesty International must be one of reserve".

[208] Sahgal issued a statement saying she felt that Amnesty was risking its reputation by associating with and thereby politically legitimizing Begg, because Cageprisoners "actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals".

Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley, criticized the payments, telling the Daily Express: "I am sure people making donations to Amnesty, in the belief they are alleviating poverty, never dreamed they were subsidising a fat cat payout.

In the following months, IEC discovered that due to British employment law, it had to choose between three options: offering Khan a third term; discontinuing her post and, in their judgement, risking legal consequences; or signing a confidential agreement and issuing a pay compensation.

[224] The Kyiv Independent editorial team strongly criticized the report, pointing out flaws in reasoning and stating that the "Amnesty [International] could not properly articulate who the main perpetrator of violence in Ukraine was".

To the contrary, the review concluded that on the basis of the evidence that AI had collected it was "simply impossible to assert that generally civilians died" as result of negligence of Ukrainian army, while "imprudent language" of the report suggested this.