Press release me, let me go

The impact of our consumer habits on certain parts of the world doesn’t often hit home, outside of the more obvious examples such as sweatshops and slave labour fuelled by the desire for luxury goods and cheap mass reproduction for the...

Today its impossible to ignore Burma. Hit by Cyclone Nargis and a subsequent devastating tidal surge which left tens of thousands dead and over a million displaced, the country is in the grips of a full-blown humanitarian crisis. The...

Now I’m not a big one for sitting in cafes “working”. You know – Wi-Fi Access Here. Frappuccinos R-Us. Delicious Cinnamon Muffins Only £2.65. All that. But I’m reliably informed that cafes are where all the “creatives” hang out...

This post is not for the squeamish. So, Guantánamo Bay. What else is there to say about it? Well, more and more, as it happens. Last week I was talking to a former Guantánamo prisoner who saw a fellow prisoner beaten with clubs for...

The cyclone in Burma is certainly dominating the news agenda today, and considering more than 22,000 people are feared dead as a result, it’s little wonder. In parts of Somalia the situation for thousands of people is pretty horrific...

I used to like a Friday night 1970s television programme called “Appointment With Fear”. Looking back, it was probably pure period cheese, but – along with John Pertwee-era “Dr Who” – it did the job of scaring me and my brother. (“Neil...

Happy May Day! Traditionally, today is associated with protest , though as far as I’m aware here in the UK the only protesting going on is in polling stations. A far cry from May Days past, including the less than peaceful one in 2000...

The 100-day countdown to the Beijing Olympics starts today and to mark it we’ve released the first of four brilliant animated films and a shiny new Human Rights for China website. The first film’s called Torchure (get it?) and...

Last week we were busy launching “Stuff of Life” – a short film exposing what’s involved in waterboarding, the partial drowning of suspects during interrogation. The excellent Malcolm Nance, an American security expert now strongly...

The Observer reported a shocking story yesterday about an Iraqi teenage girl who was murdered by her father for falling in love with a British soldier. 17-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader was subjected to an ‘honour’ killing after her family...

The ubiquitous adverts say “War. Revolution. Family. Punk rock. All part of growing up”. And the “Punk is not ded” illustration is dead-on smart marketing. So, altogether then, every reason to be suspicious of “Persepolis”. It’s an...

Its Thursday. So it must be Zimbabwe. To the naked eye (and ear) the news filtering out of Harare looks relatively positive. There was the aborted pass-the-parcel game with a shipload of arms from China destined for the land-locked...

Today’s blog comes from behind the placards as Amnesty International UK took to the streets for two very different causes. The day started off in Westminster outside Portcullis House for several Amnesty activists. They were joined by...

If youre a US talk radio host and youve got the vice-president on your station, youre going to put a few listeners questions to him, right? Right. Well thats what Scott Hennen did on station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, back in October...

I was in Paris this weekend for the Winning Press Freedom conference , featuring a fantastic line-up of experts and journalists looking at reporting conditions in China. We heard from the BBC’s foreign news editor and the head of AP...

Looking ahead to this years Media Awards as a celebration of Human Rights reporting there have been a few reminders in the news of the dangers faced by journalists as they cover stories in volatile regions. We need only cast our minds...

Phew, thats ok then! Death penalty states in American can now go back to executing people with lethal injections. The Supreme Court has ruled that there is nothing unconstitutional about these killings and that the state of Kentucky...

That’s what we were asking each other in our team meeting this morning as we discussed the news which seems to centre rather a lot around women today. Most of us struggled to get past two. (If you can reach the right answer within 10...

Do you remember the scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* when Clint Eastwood shoots down his Mexican partner just at the moment the hangmans noose tightens around his neck? Clints the sharpshooter, and the two are working a scheme...

Two weeks later and the people of Zimbabwe still have no idea who the country’s official president is because elections results have still not been declared. The BBC is reporting that a high court judge will decide on whether the...