Belfast and Beyond

In August 1971 the UK authorities arrested and interned hundreds of men in Northern Ireland. Fourteen of them were selected for "special treatment" - torture in a specially-built interrogation centre at a British Army camp. The men...

I led an Amnesty International delegation to Belfast in 1971 to investigate allegations we had received of internees subjected to brutal physical interrogation methods combined with measures of ‘sensory deprivation’. Those were...

What is distinctive about the allegations surrounding Kincora Boys’ Home is not that child abuse took place. Sadly, that was all too commonplace in many children’s homes. What is uniquely shocking about Kincora are the allegations that...

The Department of Justice in Northern Ireland has opened the public consultation on three specific changes to Northern Ireland’s abortion. Northern Ireland’s legislation in this area is very restricted with compared with the rest of...

War photographers must be wired differently to the rest of us. They feel fear, yet they seem to suppress the instinct to do anything about it. They are calm in the middle of a disrupted and dangerous reality. Paul Conroy opened the...

But how long will she have to wait? Happy Belfast Pride! Thousands will take to the streets of Belfast later today for the city's annual Pride march, Ireland's largest. But Northern Ireland looks set to become an equality backwater for...

Expect to see more 'local homes for local people' protests in Belfast. Why would there not be, when the last one was so successful? Let's face the uncomfortable truth. Nigerian-born Michael Abiona was successfully intimidated from his...

"I was a refugee from Hitler's Germany in 1939 and I have been so well treated in England and Northern Ireland, and I just want that for everybody" Inge Radford at Saturday's march Saturday afternoon in Belfast saw 8,000 people march...

With the death of Maya Angelou , the world has lost a laureate of liberty. In tribute to Maya, here's her ode to freedom, 'Caged Bird'. A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his...

On April 14, over 200 girls, most of them aged between 16 and 18, were abducted as they slept, from their school in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria. More schoolgirls have been kidnapped since. All of these girls are missing, their...

Good Friday 1998 was a day of hope. After thirty years of violence, a new day seemed to be dawning as politicians embraced, then inked an agreement which held out the promise of lasting peace. As the Agreement turns sixteen, it is...

The United Nations has declared today (24th March) as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning gross human rights violations and for the dignity of victims. One of the purposes of the Day is to honour the memory of...

Amnesty International is Washington DC this week - ahead of the visit by Northern Ireland political leaders to brief the US Adminsitration and key political figures in the Congress on what is needed to deal with the past in Northern...

In the teeth of multiple elections, can anyone seriously imagine that Northern Ireland’s political parties are going to agree compromises on emotive issues like flags and parades? Yet given the all-or-nothing approach that has been...

Twenty-five years ago today, loyalist gunmen sledge-hammered their way into the Belfast home of lawyer Patrick Finucane and shot him dead in front of his wife and young children. Since then, compelling evidence has emerged to show that...

Standing on the shore at Newcastle during the recent tidal surges, I watched wave after wave crashing over the harbour wall. The wall, otherwise imposing on a clear day, seemed a puny human artifice as it was battered by the tide and...

Speech delivered by Patrick Corrigan at Holocaust Memorial Day event held by North Down Borough Council, Northern Ireland – June 27 2014 Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. It is an honour to address you all and especially...

Guest post from Rowena McCaughan, a work experience student from Methodist College Belfast: There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world today who are victims of human trafficking. Human trafficking...