Nelson Mandela International Day observed

In December 2015, the UN General Assembly decided to extend the scope of the Mandela Day to promote humane conditions of imprisonment, to raise awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society and to value the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance.

The General Assembly resolution not only adopted the revised United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, but also approved that they should be known as the 'Nelson Mandela Rules' in order to honour the legacy of the late South African President, who spent 27 years in prison in the course of his struggle against racism and the legacy of apartheid.

• Nelson Mandela  was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.
• He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the African National Congress (ANC) in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944.
• After the National Party's white-only government established the apartheid system, which was a system of racial segregation that privileged only the white people, he and the ANC committed themselves to overthrow it.
• Mandela was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial.
• Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP) and though initially he was committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the armed group -Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 to lead a sabotage campaign against the government.
• In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.
• Mandela served 27 years in prison. However, growing domestic and international pressure combined with the fears of a racial civil war led President F. W. de Klerk to release him from prison in 1990.
• Upon his release, Mandela along with de Klerk led the efforts to bring an end to the apartheid system. He and President FW de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the same.
• Their peace efforts resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory.
• On May 10, 1994 Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first democratically elected President.
• He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. 
• His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation.
• Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.