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Campaign for the Abolition of Torture
After a year of marked success in generating international publicity and diploma- tic activity against torture, the Campaign for the Abolition of Torture became fully integrated during 1974-75 with Amnesty International's work and organiza- tional structure. The new CAT Department, in close cooperation with AI nation- al sections and the other departments of the International Secretariat, shaped a program that comprises three major fields of activity to combat torture: publi- city to emphasize this particularly heinous feature of political detention, measures to improve international law and guidelines for opposing torture, and a series of projects specially designed to develop and refine the techniques used to militate against torture.
The Role of Publicity
Publicity of various kinds is Amnesty International's principal method of exerting pressure against the policy or practice of torture. The first task during 1974-75 for the new CAT Department was to shape the campaign for immedi- ate intervention to help at least some of the countless victims of torture. A system of "urgent action campaigns" was developed, whereby in a very short time hundreds of telegrams and express letters could be sent on behalf of victims or potential victims of torture. Al national sections, which are instrumental in this system, continue to respond with great enthusiasm, and the larger sections now have special CAT groups or coordinators that execute urgent action camp- aigns whenever a situation requires an immediate response.
As the frequency of urgent campaigns increased (averaging more than one a week through May 1975), it became necessary to streamline the procedures, en- large the participation of Al's membership and inform outside groups of the campaigns. Appeals thus brought a more broadly-based response: not only from AI's membership but also from such groups and individuals as the doctors from many countries who acted for a colleague in Iran, international writers' organiza- tions for the South Korean poet Kim Chi-ha, parliamentarians for a former sena- tor in Chile, and so on.
Although there have also been urgent campaigns for prisoners in Spain, Iran,
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