Belfast and Beyond

The Belfast Salon presents: The Citizenship Pub Quiz White’s Tavern 2-4 Winecellar Entry, Belfast 7.30pm Tuesday 6 May Door Tax £2 O P E N B O R D E R S E V E R Y O N E ’ S A C I T I Z E N Imagine, it’s now mandatory to pass a...

The story of Rebiya Kadeer, exiled Chinese human rights activist and president of the World Uighur Congress, is told in striking graphic art form on the new Belfast online magazine Brazen City . She is a courageous woman – even her...

The US soldier back from tour on Iraq sobs into his wife's shoulder as he tells how he is haunted by the rape and killing of a fifteen-year-old Iraqi woman by his fellow soldiers. All around him, his homecoming party calls out...

Nineteen years after his murder by loyalist paramilitaries, the family of lawyer Pat Finucane is still waiting for the truth behind his killing to emerge. Successive UK governments have bobbed and weaved to avoid the full story...

I had a busy evening, so I could only stay for the first part of tonight's historical perspective seminar, held as one of the first events in the year-long programme of the Civil Rights Commemoration Committee to mark the fortieth...

Death row lawyer Gary Proctor, originally from Northern Ireland, addressed an Amnesty International meeting in Belfast this evening about his experiences. Graduating in law from Queen's University Belfast in 1995, Gary has been working...

Well done to the Belfast Telegraph online for prominently featuring Amnesty's new cinema advert and viral video, The Stuff of Life , in it's 'Don't miss' section. The advert illustrates the torture technique that is 'waterboarding', as...

Today's front-page lead in The Guardian, Chinese ship carries arms cargo to Mugabe regime , reminds me of the possible role of two Northern Ireland companies in helping to arm China and, through China, Zimbabawe. We revealed the...

Very, very rarely do I come across a piece of writing so powerful, so profound, so beautiful that it stops me in my tracks in awe and in need to read and re-read the words before me. It is a simultaneously humbling and uplifting...

Just a quick note to say look out this evening for the first programme in a new four-part series from journalist Peter Taylor. The programmes, looking at politically-inspired acts of violence over recent decades, start tonight on BBC2...

Just back from chairing a panel discussion after the Belfast premiere screening of 'In Prison My Whole Life' as part of the Belfast Film Festival . The film is the story of young English-American journalist William Francome's journey...

Teachers' leader Steve Sinnott died last weekend. As leader and previously deputy general secretary of the NUT , he had close relations with its sister unions in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Teachers' Union and the Irish National...

I'm cheekily nicking both the headline and the link for this story from an email from my colleague John in Amnesty's Scotland office . Despite China's pleas to keep politics out of the Olympics, it looks like they have form. China...

7:00am Up with the larks. Just enough time for a quick four-mile run around this parkland campus, before a healthy breakfast of bananas and organic stuff. Or something like that. 9:25am Milobal Cristobal of AI Hong Kong, Ville Forsman...

9:30pm There are some thirsty souls gathered around the bar – six deep at some points. Parching work, this human rights. Aikta has promised / threatened us with an evening of elegant ballroom dancing. Sadly, looking around me at a...

7:45pm The changing face of activism: Vuyiseka Dubula ( Treatment Action Campaign ) and Ben Brandzel ( MoveOn.org / Avaaz.org ). Chaired by Bruce Wylie (AIUK Head of Activism) Two very different perspectives on activism today, one from...

China, Papua, Burma, Russia. Never mind all that for a moment. Discussing food quality could possibly be the most dangerous thing I do this weekend, if happenings in the Northern Ireland courts are anything to go by. But, in the spirit...

This afternoon we campaigned for justice for the 'Tiananmen Mothers' , who lost their sons and daughters to the guns and tanks of the Chinese security forces on June 4 1989 and the days that followed. After the massacre, the mothers...

2:25pm Sam Roddick is our keynote speaker for the weekend. Her mother Anita was a big friend of Amnesty and offered her ideas, her connections and her money to advance the cause of human rights worldwide. Sam is an activist in her own...

11:25am OK. Working Party time. For the uninitiated, this is when we break into four groups to have some initial debate and give some initial scrutiny to the various resolutions (seventeen or eighteen by my count) which have been...