Neil Durkin

What happened to human rights last night? Or indeed, last week? The leaders’ debates have been a virtual human rights-free zone. Last night Nick Clegg’s preamble referred to allegations of UK torture complicity but neither he nor...

Having just braved the ash chaos and been to Paris for a few days I was struck by (1) how quiet Paris was at night (no jets overhead, just pigeons cooing in Arr16 where I was) and (2) how multicultural ( multiculturel ) it is. Even...

Oh dear. Using some of Keane’s music at the Conservative manifesto launch was maybe not the best move. Amnesty-supporting drummer Richard Hughes took an immediate swipe with one of his drumsticks – “Told the Tories played Keane at...

The other day I watched six episodes of TheThick Of It straight off the reel. Now after a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng week of the election campaign. I’m starting to … feel the burn. Probably what’s preventing my head exploding in a Malcolm Tucker...

I reckon the tributes to punk impresario Malcolm McLaren have been selling the old rascal short. Too much focus on the music, too little attention being paid to the spectacle, the protest and the deliberate stage management of outrage...

OK, it’s not a surprise that countries have “hit lists” (not music charts) and that their intelligence services bump people off, as the deceptively cosy phrase has it. But what to make of the US giving a special media briefing to...

Best April Fool of the day? The Guardian’s page three on Labour’s “ Gordon gets violent” election campaign ? Not bad. The Times’ page 19 ad for anti-sweat “Miracle Shirts” (a “real” spoof from Gillette”)? Yes, quite good (like the eye...

Reading about the 17 Indians sentenced to death in the UAE after an alleged gang attack where someone was stabbed repeatedly (shades of the Victoria Station school attack), you might think … OK, fair enough. They had it coming...

Budget day, eh? Not being fantastically fiscally-minded, I can’t claim to have waded through the news in full. But clearly it was a bad day for cider drinkers (though a good day if you were wondering what had happened to The Wurzels...

So the Hogwarts castle has burnt down in “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows”. Or rather, a studio set in Leavesden near Watford did on Friday. No-one hurt. Fine. Which got me thinking … how would this have gone down if the filming...

… so says the father of one of the Children Of Gaza in the new Dispatches programme, which screens tonight (8pm, Channel 4). “Oh no, not that”, you might think. Don’t we already know all we need to know about this depressing subject...

There’s been a frisson of film fun here in the east London office of Amnesty because a film crew has been outside half the day. There’ve been stunts, explosions (really) and lots of people walking around with walkie-talkies. Blimey. I...

Memories are notoriously slippery. For instance. Being a (relatively) old codger, I think I can remember the first moon landing. I was five. And I recall watching the not-very-clear B&W images on our 60s TV (fat body, spindly legs)...

I paid my electricity bill this week and it was steep man! Like most people, I’ve noticed my meagre wallet wedge shrinking lately even as I go around the flat switching off the lights my (profligate) girlfriend's left on … According to...

The late-breaking news last night that Ejup Ganic , a former Bosnian vice-president, had been arrested at Heathrow was, for my money, heartening. Why? Because we’re supposed to be living in a world that, after Srebrenica, after Kigali...

Anyone who’s kept up with every twist and turn of the Binyam Mohamed saga probably needs to get out more, but most people are now familiar with the broad thrust. A man is picked up in Pakistan during the US “war on terror”. Like scores...

Yesterday the Times columnist Melanie Reid gushed that the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai was like the film Ocean's 11. (I think, by the way, she meant an exciting Hollywood crime caper … as opposed to a useless star-vehicle...

It’s probably a generational thing, but a lot of conversations I have with my parents these days consist of whether “things are getting better … or worse”. Not exactly an easy topic to pin down! There’s always a danger that these...

I’ve railed against the secrecy reflex of the UK state before, but today, for once, I’m pleased that knee-jerk secrecy has been set aside in today’s Court of Appeal ruling on the Binyam Mohamed case. The supposedly US relationship...

Never work with children or animals, my mother always used to tell me, and in the main I’ve tended to follow her advice. However, here at Amnesty, we like to stage the odd demonstration and it’s a proven fact that if you want to do...