Belfast and Beyond

How do you convince policy-makers and decison-makers in the education sector that they ought to be mainstreaming human rights education within the school system? That human rights are so self-evidently "a good thing" that they ought to...

Further to my blog of August 29th , for International Day of the Disappeared , when I listed the names of eleven of Northern Ireland's disappeared, it seems that the partial remains of one, Danny McIlhone, have been unearthed in county...

This afternoon I was on Queen's Radio , the student station at Queen's University Belfast, discussing the problem of rape with senior officer Detective Superintendent Karen Baxter of the PSNI and Laura Mulholland of the Students' Union...

A most welcome speech today from Denis Bradley, co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland. In the speech, he declared more openly than ever before that the report from the Group would not be recommending any...

On the 16th September of this year, fivepeople were taken to hospital after shots were fired at a house in the LagmoreAvenue area of West Belfast. Then, on the 10th October a man was shot in both legs in West Belfast. On the 29th...

In the week that saw the United States elect a new President, it is good to see Amnesty USA launching a new blog, Human Rights Now , bringing together and improving the blogging platform for their previous blog strands. I have already...

I've never been able to tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Maybe my tastebuds aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate the subtle variance in these sugar and carbonation confections. I do like the marketing though. Coca Cola...

Studs Terkel , the great American journalist, broadcaster and more is dead . He died on Friday, aged 96, after a career spanning most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. He was best known for his oral histories...

" It seems to me that here at such an early age, in children's books, we shoul be celebrating difference as well as cosy homegrown certainties. And through books our children can grow and imagine what it might be like to be in someone...

Belfast is not a city unaccustomed to parades. From the orange of the Twelfth to the green of St Patrick’s Day to the pink of Pride, we delight in and despise them in all their hues. Yet this Sunday, Belfast’s streets will experience...

I am circulating this press release from my friend, Dashty, at the International Federaton of Iraqi Refugees, published today, and would urge all members and supporters of Amnesty to write to the new Immigration Minister to protest the...

The title refers to an anecdote from Glenn Patterson regarding an email he received from a friend about her feelings on human rights and those who would gather to discuss them at Thursday night's "Poetic redress" in the Opera House's...

9:37 Andi Osho takes the stage. She’s from Newham – a dangerous place to have the Olympics. She tells us about living there. The word ‘chav’ features heavily in her comedic discourse as does a bit of MCing. Not the John Bishop sort of...

8:48 Mike Wozniak takes the stage. He’s from Portsmouth, a town full of sailors. He has floppy hair and a moustache. He’s very popular in Portsmouth apparently. He tell us he’s never been to Ireland before, but his surreal, slightly...

Stand Up For Justice returns to the Belfast Festival at Queen's for the sixth year running. Our regular Festival blogger, Mairead , has cried off, so I'm filling in for one night only. This should be live blogging but the Whitla Hall...

This is the final blogging of the Mary Robinson Lecture for the Annual Amnesty International Lecture as part of the Queens Festival, Belfast. The previous two blogs can be found here and here After an uplifting speech peppered with...

* This is a continuation of a blogging of the Mary Robinson lecture given as The Annual Amnesty International Lecture as part of the Festival at Queens. 13.30 From calling on the ghosts of human rights past Dr. Robinson moved on to the...

Human rights can be a serious business. Dealing with torture, wrongful imprisonment, war, extreme poverty and the rest mean that we at Amnesty are pretty serious people much of the time. That's as it should be. But we also love nothing...

Brilliant Belfast writer Glenn Patterson (long-time host of the irregular literary fundraisers organised by the Belfast AI Group) will be taking part in the Amnesty International event 'Human Rights, Poetic Redress ' at the Belfast...

Some detailed leaks in the News Letter this morning about the supposed likely recommendations of the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland. As I have blogged before , their report isn't now due for...