While we can only hope that the latest fitful emergency peace talks in Cairo make progress, the fact remains that the violence in Gaza and southern Israel has been utterly terrible and has filled most onlookers with despair bordering...

"The crisis changed each and every one of us. The challenges changed us, but mostly it was death. Death left its mark in every one of us: we all changed because of the increasing violence, the loss of people close to us, the injustice...

In August 2012, Claudia was woken at 3:00 in the morning when soldiers burst into her home in Veracruz City, Mexico. They tied her hands and blindfolded her. They took her to the local naval base where they tortured her: they subjected...

It was a pleasure to take part in a conference on June 21 called Syria - Correcting the Narrative, Building Solidarity , held at SOAS in London. The conference was expertly organised by the Center for Middle East Studies, Josef Korbel...

If Rafael Braga Vieira watches the game in his hometown tonight, it’ll be from his prison cell. When the Olympics come to the city in a couple of years, he might be allowed to watch the events in his cell too. And the World Cup after...

The road ahead is still long and riddled with obstacles and mines. The end is still blocked, and what lies beyond it remains unknown – what lies beyond the siege, the revolution, and the war. It is a dream binding us all, as though we...

Join our live Q&A and ask our experts your questions Electric shocks to the genitals. Cigarette burns. Being punched and beaten. Deprived of food and water. Your family threatened with the same if you don’t confess. Despite a global...

Amnesty International UK’s national conference opened on April 12 with a speech delivered by Syrian human rights activist, Reem al Assil . What she had to say was melancholic yet ultimately inspiring. Reem has been a friend of Amnesty...

This evening, I'll be standing in Traflgar Square along with thousands of others to mark an anniversary we all hoped wouldn't exist. On Saturday, it will be three years since the start of peaceful protests in Syria. Protests which were...

The situation in Syria is the greatest humanitarian crisis of our times. 15 March marks three years since the start of the Syrian uprising. Now more than ever, we need to stand together to ensure that this is the last anniversary...

A few days before International Women’s Day 2014, Lily Allen announced she hates the word feminism . A few months ago David Cameron declined to identify himself as a feminist . Why? Is feminism a dirty word? Does the concept of equal...

Letters to the editor The Times letters@thetimes.co.uk Tuesday 4 February 2014 Sir, Growing numbers of reports of the use of “barrel bombs” by Syrian government forces in attacks on Aleppo and elsewhere are absolutely reprehensible and...

Relax, gays guys! Some of President’s Putin’s best friends are gay! He thinks Elton John is outstanding! ‘I’m not prejudiced in any way’, says the man who gave his Presidential assent to laws that have severely restricted the LGBTI...

In the small town of Boali, 100km north of the capital Bangui, the Muslim neighbourhoods are eerily silent, completely empty of their inhabitants. Every single home has been thoroughly looted. Even the front doors have been removed and...

On Friday 17 January family members, dignitaries and community representatives in Greater Manchester and elsewhere are to pay their respects to the British doctor Dr Abbas Khan , and also to remember the thousands of other victims of...

Sitting on a thin mattress inside a ramshackle structure on a muddy hilltop, elderly Abu Fares told me how he came to live in poverty in Iraq’s relatively prosperous northern Kurdistan region. For the past 11 months, he and his wife –...

We are a few hours into 2014 and the pattern of human rights violations, abuses, impunity and international inaction that blighted Syria in 2013 (and before) is still happening. Those responsible are contributing to the further misery...

The UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has said the UK should take in some of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees. He said “there is a responsibility on all of us..to try and help some of those people fleeing Syria, literally in...

"Syria has become the great tragedy of this century – a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.” António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 3 September...

I have never met Doctor D, the Afghan gynaecologist whose experience I voiced in the film above, but I know by her story that we have a lot in common. When I was asked if I wanted to be involved in this film, I absolutely leapt at the...