Press release me, let me go

Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone… I wonder how much old Thaksin Shinawatra will be singing that famous Manchester City theme tune today. By all accounts, it would be hard for the former Thai Prime minister to feel more marginalised...

One of the things you tend to notice in doing human rights work is the amazing calm of people who have suffered horrible experiences. I’m sure there are also embittered people who are always unpleasant to everyone they meet after what...

Words (almost) fail me. Cuba’s detained a singer from a rock band and is reportedly set to charge him with the super-vague offence of “social dangerousness” or “subverting communist morality”. Ok, it might seem ludicrous (it is), but...

It’s a case of education, education, education today. No doubt thousands of students across England and Wales will be dreading the start of the new academic year next week. However, pity the situation of 400 Palestinians who don’t even...

Over the last 12 months, three countries have consistently kept us busy here in the Amnesty press office: Pakistan, Burma and Zimbabwe. And all three are in the news again today – and none of it is particularly positive. In Pakistan...

I spotted Michael Phelps, eight-time gold-medallist in Beijing, while I was walking round Hampstead Heath with my parents yesterday. He was having some pictures taken on a diving board by one of the ponds and we all got quite excited...

Amid the scandalous amount of coverage of stories such as the Italian snails taking up residence at Profumo’s old haunt of Cliveden there seemed to be little space on the TV news yesterday evening for the High Court’s ruling on the...

It’s on days like this when us London-based folk take our hats off to our colleagues north of the border: if ever there were a group of people who knew how to multi-task, it’s Amnesty’s Scotland office. While maintaining Amnesty’s high...

Sadly Iran seems to be getting rather a lot of attention from Amnesty at the moment. I’ve lost count of the number of Urgent Actions we’ve issued recently on the country, asking our members to write letters to stop executions or demand...

This morning's news that there’s been a bomb attack on a hospital in Pakistan is chilling. Coming so soon after Pervez Musharraf’s resignation yesterday, you really get a feeling of a country “in turmoil” (to use the pundit-friendly...

There’s an amazing article from Hicham Yezza on the Guardian’s CiF site today. He’s the young man from Nottingham University who was arrested and held for six days without charge on suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and...

Another day and another Briton is arrested in Beijing for mounting a pro-Tibet demonstration. Philip Kirk, along with Australian-Canadian Nicole Rycroft, scaled a hoarding outside the China Central Television building. Worringly, this...

It seems as if no amount of high-level international pressure from celebrities or state leaders, mass demonstrations in the world’s capitals or even a petition for an international arrest warrant will stop the Sudanese government’s...

That old horse chestnut has cropped up again: you know the one – ‘ isn’t the woman partly to blame for being raped if she’s drunk?’ The topic was kick-started yesterday after authorities overturned the decision to reduce the amount of...

The Games seem to be going pretty well in Beijing, overshadowed of course by the shocking events in Georgia. If reports are true and Russia has now ordered an end to the conflict, hopefully people there can start repairing their lives...

The disturbing and immensely depressing events in Georgia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia have, of course, dominated the news for the entire weekend. Google News this morning shows 11,111 news items and counting, and even the Beijing Olympics...

After years of waiting (and campaigning) it all kicks off in China in a couple of hours. If you watch or listen to the BBC, you’d think that nothing else was happening in the world but the Beijing Olympics – I think BBC journalists who...

Like a certain pair of British protestors highlighting Tibet and human rights in Beijing yesterday, George Bush’s recent remarks about China and human rights were well-timed. A “blunt condemnation” according to the Times, and there’s...

The Home Office released its latest figures on the amount of times police officers have used or drawn the Taser over the past 12 months yesterday. This came as no surprise because there are now not only more officers carrying this...

Too late for the UK papers, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s death last night is, as you might expect, featuring heavily in online and broadcast coverage today (and Global Voices has some blog reaction). For anyone who cares about literature...