Neil Durkin

Just some of the things we’ve blogged on this year … … the Olympics; unfolding terror and devastation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and Zimbabwe; Obama; the Secret Policeman’s Ball 2008; the 60th anniversary of the UDHR...

The Conservative Party is all over the headlines with their row with the Met’s assistant commissioner Bob Quick – but that’s not all! The Conservatives are also making news today with their call for more funding for 15 new rape crisis...

I may have mentioned this in a post before (after a while you DO begin to repeat yourself!), but if you haven’t done already – check out Lilya 4-Ever . It is, in my humble opinion, quite simply one the best films of this (or any)...

When I’m tootling about on the blogs of an evening I’m aware of the possibility of embarrassing myself – ie I could fire off a poorly thought out comment that immediately gets jumped on by other commentators. Or, when I rattle off an...

Having been laid low (low-ish) with illness this past fortnight I’ve been breaking a rule and forcing myself to take Paracetamol and Strepsils. (I’m a classic bad patient who won’t submit to sensible medication until I’m barking my...

Not wanting to be a “government-tethered 'goat'”, Lord Lester’s resignation as constitution reform advisor and his attack on the government’s human rights record has set the cat amongst the pigeons. In a UDHR anniversary speech...

I’m conscious that in the course of the scores of posts I’ve made on the Amnesty media blog so far this year, not a lot of them have exactly been cheerful (despite my crap jokes and strained sarcasm). You could say: so what? Amnesty’s...

What a strange story! First a Wikipedia entry about the album cover from a (mostly) forgotten 1970s German heavy rock band is, apparently out of nowhere, censored . It’s all over the national (and international) media for two days then...

The closure of Guantánamo Bay will probably come not with a bang, but with a whimper. But come it will (says president-elect Barack Obama), only we don’t know when or how. The Guardian’s G2 today splashed on the “toxic legacy”...

How many ways can torturers find to hurt people? You’d maybe think that there’s a sort of limited number. Half a dozen. A dozen. Whatever. Actually, the more Amnesty stuff I read over the years the more I realise – chillingly enough –...

To paraphrase John Lennon, you may call me a dreamer but I can imagine the Democratic Republic of Congo without war. Just. Shockingly, after a decade or more of continuous violence it’s actually now difficult to envisage a peaceful...

Empty gesture from “jam makers”, or an important move to help tackle sexual slavery? Today’s news that those former barrackers of Tony Blair the Women’s Institute are going to start monitoring the local press for classified ads...

What were you doing on Friday 8 August? As it happens, I can remember because that’s when I was working for Amnesty at the Edinburgh Festival. Why do I ask? Because this was when the astonishing news broke that Georgia and Russia were...

I understand there was also quite a bit on planning for the presidential pooch, but Barack Obama’s big US television interview commitment to close Guantánamo, end torture and “regain America's moral stature in the world" has definitely...

"…a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" Lewis Carroll might have revelled in the bizarre, through the looking glass world that is modern-day Burma. After all, how many other topsy-turvy places...

So it’s Barack! Resisting the (slightly obsessive?) need-to-know-as-it-happens-ness of staying up all night, I only heard the result at 7.30 this morning on the news. (Though well done to ChrisChris for posting at 2.49am!) In times...

As anyone who’s visited our office in east London will know, Amnesty UK HQ is located in an untidy area of Shoreditch. But I like it. It’s hip, it’s happening and it’s got a lot of messy – and sometimes quite attractive – graffiti all...

No, it’s not one of the lesser-known stories from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but a Radio 4 programme from last night. I don’t catch as much R4 evening radio as I’d like to (whenever I tune into this 8pm slot I nearly always stumble...

I’ve written about it a couple of times already so won’t go through all the ins and outs, but just pose this question? Is the US state of Georgia really going to execute Troy Davis ? Yes, I know a trial jury found him guilty, a judge...

You can almost pass over the seemingly endless reports of yet more Taliban killings in Afghanistan or Pakistan. That, sadly, is how it seems to go with a bleak “fixed” situation. “Oh, more Taliban killings. Right”. You almost need to...