Torture in the USSR

Amnesty International was founded in England in 1961 as a means of mobilizing international public opinion against the imprisonment and torture by totalitarian regimes of people whose only crime was to express unorthodox political or religious beliefs. The idea spread rapidly and Amnesty members around the world began to appeal to officials in both the East and West for the release of such prisoners or, at the very least, for open trials. Lawyers were sent to observe trials in Communist and non-Communist countries, and experts collected data on prisoners in order to identify the meritorious cases.

Amnesty International strives to remain ideologically uncommitted, its international representations being based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the concepts of which the 1948 members of the UN claimed to support. Amnesty has investigated charges of persecution in such countries as Aden and Greece, and in both of these cases, the resulting publicity has had a marked effect on the ruling regimes, especially the Greek regime, whose continued membership in the Council of Europe, in which Amnesty holds consultative status, is now in doubt.

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Paul J. Lyons

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Amnesty International was founded in England in 1961 as a means of mobilizing international public opinion against the imprisonment and torture by totalitarian regimes of people whose only crime was to express unorthodox political or religious beliefs. The idea spread rapidly and Amnesty members around the world began to appeal to officials in both the East and West for the release of such prisoners or, at the very least, for open trials. Lawyers were sent to observe trials in Communist and non-Communist countries, and experts collected data on prisoners in order to identify the meritorious cases.

Amnesty International strives to remain ideologically uncommitted, its international representations being based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the concepts of which the 1948 members of the UN claimed to support. Amnesty has investigated charges of persecution in such countries as Aden and Greece, and in both of these cases, the resulting publicity has had a marked effect on the ruling regimes, especially the Greek regime, whose continued membership in the Council of Europe, in which Amnesty holds consultative status, is now in doubt.