Abstract
In May 1961, the British lawyer Peter Berenson opened the newspaper and read that, in Portugal, then governed by the dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, two students had been arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison for having toasted freedom. An indignant Berenson wrote to the British newspaper The Observer, which, on 28 May, published his article on the front page with the title “The Forgotten Prisoners.” In the article, Berenson launched an appeal in defense of the two students, unjustly punished, while inviting the paper’s readers to take a position on the matter. Readers reacted in the thousands, and the initiative had such an impact that it extended to over a dozen countries. Berenson ably coordinated these responses toward the creation of an international organization that promoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International was born.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Umberto Terracini (1895–1983) was the president of the constituting assembly.
- 3.
Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata
- 4.
Meeting minutes: source Amnesty International (Italy) archives.
- 5.
As of 14 November 1975, on the eve of the assembly, the situation was as follows: 260 enrolled members, split into five regional groups. In 1985, there were more than 6700 members, in 66 groups, with 40 more being formed.
- 6.
A. Marino, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 7.
A. Marino and C. Sbordone in [2].
- 8.
L. Carbone remembers (email, 25 January 2009): “One time De Giorgi was received by the South African ambassador in Italy, regarding a detainee held as a result of the application of Apartheid laws. He was surprised by the fact that the ambassador was himself convinced of the unfairness of these laws. The ambassador promised to look into the issue. De Giorgi was also particularly impressed by a phrase the ambassador used: Salus populi suprema lex esto (The Welfare of the People shall be the Supreme Law), a principle found in Cicero’s De Legibus.”
- 9.
“Ennio De Giorgi always carried a notebook with him (and if he didn’t have one, someone had to fetch one) in which he scribbled endlessly and in almost illegible writing. He used it primarily for mathematics, but also for humanitarian appeals.” A. Marino (31 October 2008).
- 10.
S. Mercanzin in [7]. De Giorgi also knew Romano Scalfi, founder of the magazine Russia Cristiana.
- 11.
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the equivalent of the US House of Representatives and the of the UK House of Commons. Francesco Rutelli is a center-left politician and Carlo Ripa Di Meana was a former Italian Socialist Party and Italian Green Party member (translator’s note). The presence of De Giorgi at the meeting is confirmed by a document provided by the University of Salento.
- 12.
The Helsinki Committee is a human rights organization (translator’s note).
- 13.
Recording by Radio Radicale on the “Realizing Helsinki” meeting (Rome, 22 October 1987).
- 14.
A. Fiocco (Lecce, 26 December 2007).
- 15.
Bruno Pontecorvo (1913–1993), brother of the film director Gillo Pontecorvo, was a theoretical physicist who was also one of the “Via Panisperna Boys,” Enrico Fermi’s collaborators. He was one of the very few Western intellectuals who chose to emigrate to the USSR (in 1950, during the Cold War), where he died. He visited Italy for the first time since he emigrated in 1978, on the occasion of the 70th birthday of his old Via Panisperna colleague Edoardo Amaldi.
- 16.
A. Faedo, “How Ennio De Giorgi arrived at the Scuola Normale Superiore,” Annali Sns Cl. Sc. (4) 25 (1997). Text adapted.
- 17.
The “Committee for the Defense of Ginzburg” was established in Pisa on behalf of the latter.
- 18.
The official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (translator’s note).
- 19.
E. De Giorgi, “I ask Berlinguer to save Kovalev,” Famiglia Cristiana (9 January 1977). Published in [2].
- 20.
Enrico Berlinguer (1922–1984), then leader of the Italian Communist Party (translator’s note).
- 21.
Letter to Konstantin Chernenko (Rome, 17 February 1984).
- 22.
Newspaper cutting. Begun transited through Bucharest because Romania was the only Soviet bloc country to have diplomatic relations with Israel.
- 23.
E. De Giorgi, “Costituzione Italiana e D.U.D.U.” Coscienza (11 July 1995). Published in [2]. S. Mercanzin, there on the occasion, remembers: “I took the great scientist and his friend Irina Alberti, to [Rome’s] Fiumicino Airport. To spend some more time with him, Ennio came along as well. In order not to disturb anyone, and not to be disturbed, they both sat in the back seats, and from Rome to Fiumicino they did not stop talking. They spoke of science and of human rights.”—S. Mercanzin in [7]. S. Mercanzin adds: “They spoke at length also of mathematics, I remember that Irina and I could not follow their conversations.”
- 24.
A. Marino, 16 March 2009.
- 25.
Of particular importance was a conference organized in June 1979. “We invited Piero Gheddo to this event,—wrote E. De Giorgi (letter to Corriere della Sera, 19 June 1979)—remembering that it was he who first informed the public of the terrible situation suffered by the citizens of those countries, and, together with representatives from Pime and Caritas, he continued speaking about the problem, without getting discouraged by any lack of understanding and other difficulties, and without losing faith in the sense of humanity of Italians.” On the issue of Vietnamese refugees, De Giorgi wrote “Un appello per i profughi Vietnamiti” (A plea for Vietnamese refugees), a letter to the President, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister. Published in [2].
- 26.
Letter to Corriere della Sera, 19 June 1979.
- 27.
Newspaper cutting, Singapore, 28 June 1979.
- 28.
Radical Party radio broadcast recording of the conference Believers in the Soviet Union today, Rome, 3 March 1988.
References
Bassani, F., Marino, A., Sbordone, C. (eds.): Ennio De Giorgi (Anche la scienza ha bisogno di sognare). Edizioni Plus, Pisa (2001)
Dossier Ennio De Giorgi. In: Guerraggio, A. (ed.) Lettera Matematica Pristem, pp. 27–28. Springer (1998)
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Parlangeli, A. (2019). Waves of Refugees. In: A Pure Soul. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05303-1_18
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