Press release me, let me go

Amnesty is concerned at the excessive force applied by police officers against civilians in Honduras over the past few days. The firing of tear gas at a human rights organisation when around 100 men, women and children were inside is...

The Guardian today has two very different reports on rape. One focuses on a government review on how rape cases are handled here in the UK while the other looks at the prison sentence for a man in South Africa who was jailed for the...

In Sierra Leone one in every eight pregnant woman will die. It’s staggering to think that this could be so when the threat of dying in childbirth is so unlikely in the UK. Pregnant women in Sierra Leone die from a number of reasons...

There’s a man on death row facing imminent execution for the second time. How so? Romell Broom would already be dead if his execution by lethal injection on Tuesday hadn’t gone badly wrong when state officials couldn’t find a vein...

The biggest human rights story in the news today has to be the reports of British oil trading company Trafigura agreeing to settle out of court with 31,000 people in Ivory Coast. British law firm Leigh Day were representing the Ivorian...

The finding from the UN investigator Judge Richard Goldstone that both the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes in Gaza at the beginning of the year has met with two predictable responses. Response...

The gloves are off and the war of words is definitely back on by Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF officials toward the EU following the weekend’s visit to the country by European officials and their refusal to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe...

Good to read about Gordon Brown's apology for the indescribably brutal way in which computer pioneer Alan Turing was treated by the government and the courts in Britain fifty plus year ago. Turing, whose work was essential to the...

To kick off here are a couple of quotes: “While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green.” “The wisdom never dies. On that kind of...

Who would be a journalist? It’s hard to get into. It’s tough work: frantic deadlines, high-pressure – get it wrong and your outfit might get sued! And there’s immense pressure to cut costs, especially on the inky-handed “Fleet Street”...

The biennial arms fair opened for business today at Docklands ExCel Centre amid a flurry of reports about international weapons transfers and protests. BBC News reports that Campaign Against the Arms Trade were expected to stage...

The court’s decision to fine Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein for wearing trousers is disgraceful and has revealed that in spite of international outrage and attention, authorities in Sudan will continue to approve laws which so...

Comparisons to Nazi doctors conducting experiments on death camp prisoners are definitely overblown, but there’s something horribly sinister about news that the CIA used doctors extensively during “war on terror” torture sessions. My...

Earlier today Amnesty supporters attended a vigil in London’s Parliament Square (where hundreds of Tamils were protesting earlier this year) to draw attention to the case of Tissa , a Tamil journalist who was jailed for twenty years in...

Let’s start with a numbers question. How many people is a thousand people? Not as easy as it sounds. Ever been at an event and someone asked you to say how many were there? You inevitably go: “Oh, about 200. No wait, maybe 300. No...

No doubt most of us will be looking forward to spending time with friends and family at some stage over this weekend, especially as it’s the last bank holiday weekend of the year before Christmas. But for thousands of men, women and...

Some time ago I did an interview for Amnesty about how China reportedly harvests the organs of executed prisoners. I remember it well because the pre-recorded interview was for the BBC 10 O Clock News – much coveted – and because when...

Strange interview by the Israeli ambassador on the radio this morning. In his 8.10am Today programme slot not only did Ron Prosor, Tel Aviv’s man in London, have a dig at Arab leaders who in his view buy football clubs like Manchester...

A confession, dear reader. The shockingly juvenile rock-metal band AC/DC were part of the soundtrack to my youth. They were always blasting away on mum and dad’s “stereogramme” when they (mum and dad) were up the pub on a Friday night...

Earlier this week Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2004, and that the attacks appear to be organised. Across Eastern Europe gay people are increasingly out and proud but are facing...