Belfast and Beyond

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...

10:36am Tim Hancock, Campaigns Director and Colum McAndrew, Board member gave us the inside track on what went on at last year's International Council Meeting, our biennial global congress, which decides big policy, elects our...

10:10am We're solvent. Phew! (only joking – our financial position has remained strong for years). The Treasurer's report has the potential to rival the standing orders committee report in its mind-numbing tedium for the average...

9:22am I'm not being a crawler here, but Kate Allen has grown in stature and oratorical powers over the years since she became AIUK Director in 2000. I'm looking forward to hearing her speech. She opens up her annual address to the...

9:06 Alex Siddall is taking us through the welcomes and processes and sets a nice tone for the weekend ahead – good humoured, authoritative and respectful. AIUK Chair of the Board, Tom Hedley sets the scene. So will I. We're sitting in...

8:32am Okay. Ready? Well, I made it safely to the AGM (thanks for asking). Got to the Nottingham conference centre about quarter to nine last night – four hours door to door from the office in Belast, by car, plane, bus and coach. Not...

OK, off to the airport in a minute to catch the flight that will take me to what will be the capital city of our human rights world for the next few days – yes, that's right, Nottingham! Well, with its most famous son (not counting...

Martin Luther King Jr is a hero of mine. He had a belief in the dignity of man and made this real through his practice of nonviolence as a means of social change. Forty years ago today, he gave his "I have been to the mountaintop"...

As previously blogged , the launch of a programme of events by the Civil Rights 1968 Commemoration Commmittee was held on Thursday evening in Belfast's Linenhall Library. The 2nd floor was thick with leaders and activists from 40 years...