Amnesty International members from the Boston area listened yesterday to the new national chairman discuss the role of the United States chapter in the fight against opporession of human rights.

In an informal presentation at Dunster House last night, A. Whitney Ellsworth '58, who became the national chairman last month, discussed the rapid expansion of Amnesty International in the United States in recent years. The organization was founded in 1961 but remained small and ineffective until the members initiated "a new lease on life" in 1971, Ellsworth said.

The group has 55,000 members out of a total world membership of approximately 150,000.

Amnesty International consists of "adoption groups" located throughout the country. These groups work towards the release of political prisoners, Ellsworth said.

Qualifications

To be considered as an adoptee, the prisoner must be a "prisoner of conscience," having been detained because of a moral. religious or racial issue, and the prisoner must never have advocated or committed violence, Ellsworth said.

The procedure for investigating a possible case usually involves three to six months of letter writing, talking with the prisoner's family and working through foreign contacts, he said.

"Amnesty Internation's world headquarters in London described Amnesty International's tactics as politics of shame--a polite, diplomatic way of gaining prisoners' release," Ellsworth said.