Press release me, let me go

I’m still staggered that anyone could think it’s OK to partially-bury someone in the ground and throw stones at them until they’re dead. I’d be pretty sickened if I heard that some sadistic criminal had done it. But for this punishment...

Things are once again looking bad in Zimbabwe. Despite a burst of optimism after Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe formed the ‘Inclusive Government’, it doesn’t seem to be working out. Unless, it seems, you’re the UK Home Office, who...

… is the hypothetical question posed by a Channel 4 drama coming out in November. I say posed , but what we’re getting, apparently, is a 90-minute feature-length drama – The Execution of Gary Glitter – “set in an imaginary Britain in...

Back in 2006 I took a day out from the Amnesty office to “job-swap” at the news desk of The Independent at their (then) office at Canary Wharf in east London. All very interesting. For one thing: what a studious atmosphere! More like a...

Have a look at this clip from French TV channel TF1 (about 20 minutes in – you can fast forward). You’ll see Armoured Personnel Carriers transporting soldiers to brutally put down a peaceful demo in Conakry, Guinea, last month. When...

As the old Buzzcocks favourite puts it, “Noise annoys”, and at first glance there’s something almost comical about claims that music was used to torture “war on terror” prisoners. Loud music can be annoying , but it doesn’t actually...

When Palestinian men suffer “light blows” at the hands of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem it’s apparently not worth prosecuting. Or so it appears. According to Yesh Din, a human rights group that has taken a case on behalf of some...

Akmal Shaikh, a man from north London, is currently facing execution , in the next few days, in China. There’s strong evidence that he may be mentally ill, suffering from bipolar disorder: he had reportedly left London to set up an...

An attempt by the UK Border Agency last week to forcibly remove some 44 refused Iraqi asylum seekers and send them back to Baghdad appears to have been conducted by the Keystone Cops – or rather the Keystone Private Security...

A couple of years ago I had two weeks off work because I was called up for jury service. A cushy number? Not really. Going to Snaresbrook crown court every morning to hear about a large-scale cocaine smuggling case was – interesting...

First it was Disney films and Robert Louis Stevenson adaptations ( Kidnapped !), the Bond films (Roger Moore period), then the adolescent stuff – Jaws , The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (couldn’t get in, it was an “18”-rater!), and then...

There was much talk over the weekend about Hillary Clinton’s whistle-stop tour around Europe. During her whirlwind tour the US Secretary of State managed to make a pit-stop at Westminster where she reassured Gordon Brown of the US-UK...

Alarming news from Iran (again). This time it’s the fact that there’s been a death sentence over the election protests. Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani , a 37-year-old, is now facing death by hanging for the crime of supposedly taking up arms...

At the weekend my partner was watching Gandhi , one of our DVD rentals from (the excellent) Sofa Cinema. “I’m not that interested”, I said. “Seen it”. “Not that good.” “Ben Kingsley as Gandhi? Hmm, not sure.” I was stubborn, adamant. I...

Today is National Poetry Day in Britain. At Amnesty we recently received the very moving poem below from a Sri Lankan living in Canada who is trying to imagine what life in the detention camps in Sri Lanka must be like for a child...

Looking forward to the London Olympics? Well, it’s a fair bet that so are the trafficking gangs who force people into prostitution, domestic servitude or no-or-low-pay labouring jobs. In less than three years’ time the athletes and...

Today’s Guardian reports on what appears to have been the appalling death of a man who was allegedly tortured to death in detention by members of the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah-led intelligence services. According to the report...

… which, as middle-aged hippies like me will tell you, is a line from Neil Young’s student protest song “Ohio” (“Gotta get down to it / Soldiers are cutting us down / Should have been done long ago / What if you knew her and found her...

Lack of justice for women and girls who have been victims of rape and sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations is high on the agenda for Amnesty today. We have two reports looking at the exact theme but in countries...

Morbidly enough, I’ve always thought songs about capital punishment were a pretty fascinating sub-genre. On this blog I’ve previously mentioned The Adverts’ punk classic “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” (a number 18 hit in 1977, pop-pickers!) and...