Amnesty International was founded in the United Kingdom in 1961. Ever since, it has fought for equality and for the rights of every human being. It is one of the best-known human rights organisations, and in 1977 its work was honoured with the Nobel Prize.
The non-governmental organisation focuses on the rights of women and children, of prisoners and of refugees. It researches and documents human rights abuses, campaigns for people at risk and presses governments to free those who have been wrongfully imprisoned or tortured.
Most of its work today means standing up for people whose rights have been taken away.
Women denied the rights that men have. Children exploited as slave labour. People arrested and tortured without legal grounds by regimes that ignore international law. And refugees deprived of their basic rights on the long way west.
As an NGO, Amnesty International depends on its supporters to keep this work going.