Amnesty

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Peter Benenson, the lawyer who founded Amnesty International, human rights campaign group, has died aged 83 years.

The son of a British Army colonel,Benenson set up the group in 1961 after he read about the arrest and imprisonment of two students in a Lisbon cafe who drank a toast to liberty when Portugal was still run by a military dictatorship.

He launched Amnesty with a newspaper article dedicated to the plight of six political prisoners in Africa, America and Eastern Europe.



Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, said his vision had given birth to human rights activism. Today Amnesty has 1.8m members and supporters.Benenson died on Friday at John Radcliffe hospital Oxford England UK, he survived by his wife Susan and three daughters.