Press release me, let me go

Its interesting to visit a country just as some newsworthy event happens and, just as I flew into Istanbul on Friday to visit Amnesty International Turkey, the country seemed to be heading inevitably towards military action in...

Its Monday and we here at Amnesty have a new world record the quietest weekend of calls in history. Of course its all down to a small weekend of sport. There was the disappointment of Lewis Hamilton in Formula One and the repercussions...

Two legs bad, four legs good. Remember that? Anyway, two blogs for the price of one today. First a quickie from me, then over to our NYC blogger. Main news is the unbelievable bloodshed that greeted Benazir Bhutto , only hours after...

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Now given the amount of new material that hit the Amnesty inbox in the last 24 hours, weve got a novel on our hands. Firstly there was a great eight-minute film made by the...

This afternoon Ill be hoping to sneak off and catch Englands must-win football match against Russia, controversially played on a plastic pitch. To be honest, if we try to use that as an excuse for failing to beat a side weve already...

Its all Ming today and while we welcomed his comments a couple of months ago on human rights, China and the Olympics, we havent got a lot to say here in the office about his age and what happens next. Too old? Too well-dressed? Should...

Forgetting rugby for a moment, all eyes are on China this week as the 17th Communist Party Congress kicks off. The Guardian carries a story highlighting the lack of transparency and the curious mix of capitalism and socialism that is...

More tragic news from Iraq, with reports saying that 15 women and children were killed yesterday in a US air strike in northern Iraq. The American military has apologised, while saying that the attacks were targeting senior al-Qaida...

Stunning piece on Zimbabwe on the front page of todays Metro . Getting a rare glimpse into the secretive country, the paper highlights the death of Vincent Sibanda, a nine-month-old baby boy and the latest victim of the AIDS epidemic...

Busy day yesterday, launching our new Unsubscribe campaign first in Birmingham , where the bulk of the campaign billboards are posted, and then at a blogger event, Changing the way we change the world at our Human Rights Action Centre...

Watching the number of people joining our new online campaign edge ever closer to 10,000 just ahead of the official launch in Birmingham this morning took me back to the days when similar excitement could be had by tuning in to Blue...

So this afternoon, up stepped the PM to face the snarling media pack all desperate for blood. And their fascination? The Election That Never Was (ETNW). Sometimes you wish the media would get a grip. The ETNW dominated while the story...

Yes, a bonus blog today! Im just back from the big Burma demo in Trafalgar Square - a fantastic, moving event. The place was swathed in red: armbands, headbands, flags and plenty of Amnesty banners. Check my flickr pics here. There...

The decision by Burma’s military ruler to meet imprisoned democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi is so riddled with conditions that it makes me wonder if they really want to make that happen. It also seems slightly incongruous...

First do no harm. Thats the ethical code that doctors sign up to, so an execution chamber is a strange place to find them. As Amnesty shows in a new report out today , doctors, anaesthetists and other medical personnel have been using...

The brilliantly named Dr Brain is fronting a new drive from the police to crack down on sex traffickers - the criminals who literally buy and sell women and girls (occasionally men) into sexual slavery. Weve talked about this in...

Another striking striking front-page today: The callous hypocrisy of our asylum system. The paper contrasts last weeks warm words from Gordon Brown about how we need to support human rights in Burma, Darfur and Zimbabwe, with the fact...

I’m contentedly biting into a delightful Belgian praline as I write this as I’ve just returned from the lovely town of Ghent in Belgium where I attended a conference for Amnesty press staff across the EU. Nothing works quite like...

As though the situation in Burma wasnt miserable enough with several other deaths and much bloodshed - we can now add another name to the very long list of journalists killed in the course of opening the eyes of you, me and everyone...

Were expecting over 200 people at our demo outside the Burmese embassy in London today. Its at 12.00 noon at 19a Charles Street, Mayfair, London W1. There are other demos from Amnesty sections all over the world today. Our messages are...