[1] Born in 1927 in Walsall, Staffordshire to Arthur Ford Ennals and his wife Jessie Edith Taylor.
In 1959, Ennals became a founding member of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and also became secretary general of the National Council for Civil Liberties, a position that he held until 1966, when he became information and publications officer of the Commission for Racial Equality.
Ennals represented an era where Amnesty became a human rights organization of global concern.
The award gives international "protective publicity" to human rights defenders around the world, mainly in their country of origin (a unique characteristic of this award, and very important from a protection point of view), through too much mass media (television, radio and internet).
[9] The Annual Ceremony organised with the City of Geneva is an event with world Internet and TV coverage.