Amnesty will stage its annual Tokyo charity concert Oct. 3 with one of Tokyo's longest-running bands, the Howling Loochie Brothers, providing music to get people up and dancing.
Amnesty International is one of the most successful international NGOs working for prisoners of conscience. In 1961, a British lawyer wrote a newspaper article in which he urged people to protest against the imprisonment of two Portuguese students by bombarding the authorities with letters. Thousands of people responded, and Amnesty International was born.
With groups in more than 40 countries and more than 1 million members worldwide, Amnesty organizes campaigns to free people who have been detained for their beliefs or on account of their ethnic origin, sex, color or language, people who have not used or advocated violence.