Global Voices

The Indian elections are the largest voting exercise the world has ever seen. More than 550 million Indian voters have gone to the polls to elect a new government in the world’s largest democracy. The elections have been a potpourri of...

Early last Saturday morning (5 April 2014), the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s Maré complex of favelas (slums) woke up to a military occupation by around 2,700 federal Army troops. They took over from a military police contingent that had...

The only reason I’m alive is because my attackers ran out of bullets. I remember that evening – 17 December 2013 – very clearly. The look of surprise on the gunman’s face after he hunched down on one knee, took aim at me one last time...

It’s two years today since Pussy Riot climbed the steps to the altar of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and ‘performed’, jumping, chanting, with unplugged guitars and microphones. After a minute, they were removed from the church...

By Cousin Zilala, Executive Director of Amnesty International Zimbabwe 'As someone who has been on death row myself and only saved by an ‘age technicality’, I believe that our justice delivery system must rid itself of this odious and...

Colin Haskin is a life-long activist and works with Amnesty in South Africa. I was born in 1957 to a white Irish father and a black Zulu mother. My older sister and younger brother came out white. I did not. For us to live together as...

Birtukan Mideksa is a Harvard fellow, studying for an MA in Public Administration. She’s also been a politician in Ethiopia, leading her home country’s main opposition party Unity for Democracy and Justice. And because of her political...

Eman Al Nafjan ( @Saudiwoman ) is a female blogger from Saudi Arabia who has been campaigning against the driving ban. She was arrested by police earlier this month as she filmed a female driver breaking the ban. If there was one word...

On 18 September 2013, the Papua New Guinean Government passed the Family Protection Bill 2013 with a landslide 65-0 vote. What's the good news? The unanimous support for the bill signified strong political will to reduce the high rates...

By Malala Yousafzai, Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience 2013 This speech was originally delivered at the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award ceremony in Dublin, Ireland on 17 September 2013. Dear respected...

Diana Eltahawy is our Egypt researcher and has spent much of the last few weeks in Cairo. Tension is palpable in Cairo’s eerily empty streets. The night-time curfew imposed last Wednesday following the violent dispersals of pro-Morsi...

One year ago the doors to Amnesty’s office in India opened for the first time. The team hit the ground running, and 12 months on it’s really exciting to see the impact they are having working with and mobilising ordinary people like...

By Fotis Filippou, Amnesty International’s Regional Campaign Coordinator for Europe and Central Asia “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” George Santayana This week in Hungary, a Budapest Court...

When Zimbabwe’s elections were last held in 2008, the resulting violence and repression led to over 200 people being killed and 10,000 injured. The violence was so severe that hospitals ran out of crutches and 28,000 people were forced...

An update from Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey researcher in Istanbul. On Monday night, one person went to Taksim Square and just stood still in a silent and symbolic protest against the recent violence there. The same evening, lots...

Murat Çekiç, Director of Amnesty Turkey, on a sleepless week in Istanbul. As I write this, there are at least 10,000 people in Taksim Square, all protesting for 10,000 reasons. But here in our office, everything is calm. We had a...

In December 2012, Amnesty International Brazil organised an event alongside the Brazilian Canoe Championships to demand justice for the fishermen of Guanabara Bay. Since 2009 the fishermen of Guanabara Bay, known as the Association of...

Young Amnesty activists are leading the charge against the death penalty in Morocco and in the rest of the world. Since 2006 they have made remarkable progress in a country where many people believe that the death penalty is a right of...