What is a cat worth? Thought I’d ask not because I’m interested in selling a couple of dozen moggies or because I especially like furry felines (though I do), but because of this cryptic quote from the Hamas deputy leader, Moussa abu...

The BBC’s report about how 27 former detainees of the US military detention centre at Bagram in Afghanistan say they were abused doesn’t do a lot more than put more flesh on the bones of what we already knew. Journalists and...

I few years ago I had some hate mail from Combat 18, the neo-Nazi splinter group with historical links to the National Front and the BNP. Apparently C18 is a tiny organisation beloved of would-be bovver boys who really did absorb that...

What's going on in Iran? The results in the election have surprised commentators the world over. Mousavi supporters in Iran are naturally disappointed (to the point of saying the election’s been “stolen”) and the likes of Hillary...

Long, long ago, when I were a mere university undergrad, they used to talk a lot in my English Lit department about “doubles” and doppelgänger s. I was always reading essays called “Doubles in the longer tales of Edgar Allen Poe” or...

"Those crucified are beheaded first and then their heads are sewn back on their bodies.” This is from a CNN news account of an execution that took place in Saudi Arabia on Friday, one of about 40 there so far this year (there were at...

Another week, another MI5 torture collusion allegation. Or that’s how it‘s beginning to feel. The Guardian’s front-page story today on the torture and arbitrary detention a British man called Jamil Rahman says he suffered in Bangladesh...

He’s in a “very difficult position” politically. He’s “trapped” by the Senate’s decision to block money . Oh, dear, Barack Obama is a virtual prisoner and his plan to close Guantánamo is left in limbo. Listening to some news reports...

Being a Stanley Kubrick fan (which cinema lover doesn't love at least one Kubrick classic?) I've obviously seen that slightly ropey early effort, Spartacus . It's okay. Just. But, whatever you think about Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and...

I took a call this week from a reporter saying that her magazine had been investigating baby selling in Europe and found that you could buy a baby for as little as £1,200. Nice. This is the sort of stuff you hear about at Amnesty – ie...

So well done to Brixton Electric Radio. Winning four Sony radio awards is no mean achievement and amazing for a prison radio station. PopSugar might think it’s all about Chris Evans getting two awards or Vanessa Feltz getting hers, but...

Fancy buying a rare piece of 16th-century torture equipment? Something like a “shame mask” originally used to enforce silence? Or a “tongue-tearer” which was used to punish blasphemers and heretics. Or a three-metre-long “rack” for...

Writing this only metres from the historical site of the theatre where the first Shakespeare plays were performed ( really! ) I think I can be forgiven for bastardising the Bard. Because today the question in this post is: “to inquire...

Working at Amnesty you’re supposed to be kind of unshockable . But you know what … it ain’t so! For example … I got to my desk this morning and took a call even before I’d sat down properly. It wasn’t good news . In fact it was...

Stealing an idea from the BBC’s Justin Webb , today I’m doing exactly 100 words on Obama’s first 100 days! So here’s my (super-brief!) evaluation. Good things: promising Guantánamo's termination within a year, announcing the closure of...

President Obama has his foot firmly on the brake. In fact, he's already been footling around with the reverse gear. Famously fast out of the traps with his second-day-in-office “executive orders” against torture and Guantánamo Bay...

So there you are – facing Chris Tarrant, you’re one correct answer off the big one (a cool million) and you don’t know the answer to the question. You know what you’re going to do, don’t you? Yes – phone a friend. Instead, try this one...

I've blogged before about “honour killings” in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq – the area seems blighted by them. And, as blog readers will recall, it was a Kurdish family living in London who in 2006 killed Banaz Mahmod, the 20...

So, why are our troops in Afghanistan if they’re helping to defend a government like this one? … was the question in a couple of interviews I’ve done since I last blogged on Friday. Bearing in mind that interviewers were referring to...

It’s an echo of that (even grimmer, horribly grotesque in fact) mobile phone footage of another teenage girl being punished, filmed and then broadcast around the world as a “warning” and an “example”. A couple of years ago a teenager...