Press release me, let me go

Blood diamonds are forever At amnesty we think some campaigns are going to be easier than others. When the people suffering human rights abuses are in a far-flung place with little connection to Britain, when the reason they are at...

What is a cat worth? Thought I’d ask not because I’m interested in selling a couple of dozen moggies or because I especially like furry felines (though I do), but because of this cryptic quote from the Hamas deputy leader, Moussa abu...

The BBC’s report about how 27 former detainees of the US military detention centre at Bagram in Afghanistan say they were abused doesn’t do a lot more than put more flesh on the bones of what we already knew. Journalists and...

Despite more pessimistic reports, it looks as though Morgan Tsvangirai’s other meetings during his tour to the US and Europe have so far been successful. His discussions with US President Obama and our PM Brown have certainly proved...

Tomorrow we’ll be announcing Amnesty’s programme for this year’s Edinburgh Festival, and once again it’s looking pretty exciting – particularly for me as I get to go up to Edinburgh for two weeks to help promote it. The Amnesty Stand...

Amnesty’s head Irene Khan has just returned from Zimbabwe where she held a series of meetings with senior government figures, including Vice President Joice Mujuru, the Defence Minister and the Home Office Ministers. Although Irene...

I few years ago I had some hate mail from Combat 18, the neo-Nazi splinter group with historical links to the National Front and the BNP. Apparently C18 is a tiny organisation beloved of would-be bovver boys who really did absorb that...

(with thanks to @Taylor_Seb for the Gil Scott Heron pun!) I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told that Twitter has ‘come of age’, (certainly not in 140 characters) but I can’t resist saying it about the current situation...

I doubt I wasn’t the only one shocked (pardon the pun!) by the footage revealed by Trent FM of a man in Nottingham being Tasered for a second time while already on the ground and surrounded by four police officers. According to the...

What's going on in Iran? The results in the election have surprised commentators the world over. Mousavi supporters in Iran are naturally disappointed (to the point of saying the election’s been “stolen”) and the likes of Hillary...

Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan concludes her high-level mission to Kenya today with the launch of a new report outlining the rights abuses faced by those living in Kenya's slums and informal settlements. The...

The leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries, the G8, were keen to join the Make Poverty History bandwagon in the Summer of 2005 and all made pledges to give more aid to African countries to 2010. How appalling then that several...

Blog 10.6.09 I was at the House of Lords this morning to hear the Law Lords’ verdict on the use of secret evidence in the trials of several terrorism suspects who are subjected to Control Orders. The result was a resounding victory for...

Controversy and debate continues to surround Shell’s decision to pay out $15.5 million in compensation to the families of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who were either hanged or maimed in 1995. According to BBC News, the lawyers are...

Imagine being confined to your home for 12 hours every day and having to call a monitoring company to confirm your whereabouts thee times a day, including in the middle of the night. Having no visitors to your home unless they’ve been...

Long, long ago, when I were a mere university undergrad, they used to talk a lot in my English Lit department about “doubles” and doppelgänger s. I was always reading essays called “Doubles in the longer tales of Edgar Allen Poe” or...

Today we marked the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, laying flowers outside the Chinese embassy in London. Amnesty supporters were joined by survivors of the crackdown Shao Jiang, Dr Wang Rongfen and Wu Yenhua. They...

Actually now it’s the afternoon after the morning after the night before which was Amnesty International’s Media Awards ceremony. And what a lovely evening it was! Held at a beautiful central London location overlooking the Thames on...

I remember my 18th birthday but only just. I remember my 21st better, when I was a reporter on a local paper and I partied not just with my own colleagues but also with our competitors. Such was the, rather pleasant, nature of local...

"Those crucified are beheaded first and then their heads are sewn back on their bodies.” This is from a CNN news account of an execution that took place in Saudi Arabia on Friday, one of about 40 there so far this year (there were at...