Belfast and Beyond

Meant to blog this before now, but was reminded to do so yesterday as I witnessed former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern being awarded an honorary doctorate in law by Queen's University Belfast. Tony Blair got one too (by video!), as a tribute...

"Do you know they got rid off the Magna Carta, about six months ago?" – Gore Vidal. I previously blogged on the inestimable Gore Vidal and quoted some of his famous words from down the years. C4 News' Jon Snow interviewed the writer...

Finally David Miliband has broken with his US mentors and stated that there can be no military solution to the "insurgencies" in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas. This marks a major policy shift between the two allies, the US...

I really hate it when people who have not seen a film or play take it upon themelves to comment publicly on it – usually to criticise it in a Mary Whitehouse-style way, slamming the producers and urging others not to see it either. So...

That brilliant American man of letters, Gore Vidal , was featured on the South Bank Show last night. Melvyn Bragg had secured an interview with the great man in his new LA home, after decades of self-imposed exile in Italy. I have...

What are you doing next Wednesday? Earl Wesley Berry will die. Almost certainly. He is scheduled to be executed in Mississippi on May 21 for the murder of Mary Bounds. So Brian, over at the ever-improving Amnesty USA blogs , tells us...

Waow! Yesterday I went to a lecture delivered by Human Rights lawyer Philippe Sands, hosted by Queens University School of Law. The Lecture was based on Philippe Sands book "Torture Team: Deception Cruelty and the Compromise of Law". I...

As mentioned yesterday , Israelis are celebrating 60 years since the foundation of their State. Meanwhile, Palestinians have been marking 60 years of 'al Nakba', the catastrophe. The Guardian has a short article here and a good photo...

US President Bush has arrived in Tel Aviv to help Israel mark the anniversary of its declaration of independence. As Israelis celebrate sixty years of Statehood, so Palestinians mark sixty years of 'al Nakba' – 'the catastrophe'. In...

Who do they think they are kidding? The terrorists who bombed an off-duty PSNI officer in Tyrone last night have nothing to offer modern-day Ireland, north or south, but a return to the worst of the 1970s – bad hair, bad clothes, bad...

I think that we can definitely call Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish/ German ex-detainee from Guantanamo Bay’s visit to Northern Ireland a success! He visited the Foyle Amnesty group and launched his book in Northern Ireland at the Cathedral...

Amnesty are presenting in association with the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival a play called “The Lady of Burma”. I will paste below the introduction I am presenting before the play which I will confess draws heavily on an article in...

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...