Blogging for Amnesty: how, why.

I have been blogging here since June 2006. I decided to start the blog because I like to write and share my opinions in support of Amnesty International. I like the idea of using the internet to keep up with events and respond quickly, before Amnesty's magazine arrives or even before the website gives suggested actions. Sometimes I write about news that I have seen on television or on the internet or heard on the radio.

I am interested in remembering history so that we learn from it.  There are parts of history that some would like to re-write, things that they would rather we forgot.  History was changed in the novel 1984 by George Orwell but it does not happen just in fiction.

(I have just found a website with the title Forgotten History and it relates to the foreign policy of the United States.  It is a shocking series of abuses of power.)

In some entries I write about things that I have been reading or that have just come to mind so I am not always topical and I have written about events from decades or even more than a century ago.  Human rights is a vast subject so I am not running out of words to write.

The blog area on Amnesty's website has been improved. Now the pages are easier to use and it is simpler for bloggers such as me. It is quicker for me to put in links to guide you to other websites and I will use tags or keywords to help you to search.

More and more people involved in all kinds of Amnesty activities are writing blogs. I am pleased to see that local groups and individuals are doing blogs and that there are Amnesty staff too. I hope that people are finding it an interesting and useful section of the website. Do remember that you can comment on the blog entries.  Use the freedom to debate issues that we have and that so many in the world do not.  Let's get some more discussion and debate going!  Thanks to those who have left comments on my blog already.