Belfast and Beyond

"Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice." - Arnold...

It's just turned Christmas Day in the Corrigan household. Our three elves are all in bed and Santa Claus is expected anytime now. Being a hi-tech family, we've been tracking his progress across the world on the NORAD website , which...

Having just attended my boys' nativity plays (well done everyone at All Children's Primary in Newcastle, Co Down!) my mind wanders to the series of flagrant human rights abuses related in the biblical tale and how they might be...

Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (Hardback, 640 pages, Allen Lane, rrp £25, available £17.50) Samantha Power is mostly famous for one thing on this side of the Atlantic. She was the foreign...

As previously blogged , I got along to the handover yesterday of the advice from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to the UK government on the shape and content of a NI Bill of Rights. Hours before the advice had even been...

Today is international Human Rights Day and, ten years after the Multi-Party (Belfast/Good Friday) Agreement , we will finally see the advice on the shape and content of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland handed over by the NI Human...

Family members of those 'disappeared' during the Northern Ireland conflict have made an appeal – probably a last throw of the dice – for information as to the whereabouts of the remains of their loved ones. Amnesty supporter and actor...

Does evil exist? Does it matter? I'm prompted to ask by the front-page headline in my morning metro (in London today): " The 'pure evil' of Shannon mother ". The description comes from the policeman heading up the case into the three...

Great news today as over 100 countries line up in Oslo to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty for which Amnesty's members and allies worldwide have battled long and hard. The fact that the Republic of Ireland is one of...

After a successful brothel raid by the PSNI in south Belfast at the end of last week, Amnesty generated a flurry of media interest in our campaign to secure protection for the rescued victims of human trafficking. We remain concerned...

The new ' Bs' of Belfast got me reflecting on what it is to 'be'. I'm afraid that this alliterative campaign first brought to my mind an anecdote I learnt as a child growing up on the edge of the damp dump (sorry, picturesque Victorian...

In an earlier blog I called for an end to the vilification of young people, highlighting a You Gov poll commissioned by Barnardo’s which quoted some pretty shocking findings in relation to young people. From the comments I realised...

With less than a fortnight to go before the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission gives the Government its long-awaited advice on the scope and substance of a proposed NI Bill of Rights, the BBC's local flagship politics programme...

Last week I demonstrated unusual prescience when I warned on this blog that UK policing urgently risked a slippery slope towards ever-increasing Taser deployment. On Monday the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will announce that up to 30...

Hopes are riding high on an Obama presidency. Not least among human rights campaigners in America and internationally who have had a tough few years trying to reconcile old fashioned concepts like the Geneva Conventions and the taboo...

In the week that readers of amnesty blogs were able to learn about how well informed and compassionate young people can be (care of the great selection of blogs from NI Youth ), a number of publications have provided further evidence...

Where was your Chief Constable last week? If they were among the 15,000 top cops from around the world attending the International Association of the Chiefs of Police conference in San Diego, maybe it’s time to start worrying...

The front pages displayed on the weekend news-stands suffered from no shortage of ‘Strictly Come X-Factor, Get Me Out of Here’ non-stories. Rather fewer front pages were given over, however, to the reporting of the deaths of two Royal...

A trawl through some of the online responses to the coverage of Bilal Abdulla's words on Iraq at his ongoing trial reveals a predictable variety of replies from some who find his views totally unacceptable, to those who are willing to...

Get yourself over to Telegraph Blogs for the latest on the likelihood of the UK having its very own truth and reconciliation commission (to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict). We at Amnesty are pretty clear about...