Amnesty described its mandate as working for adequate treatment of all prisoners, fighting for the rule of law, and seeking the release of those it called 'prisoners of conscience', defined as 'any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 344