"…a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" Lewis Carroll might have revelled in the bizarre, through the looking glass world that is modern-day Burma. After all, how many other topsy-turvy places...

So it’s Barack! Resisting the (slightly obsessive?) need-to-know-as-it-happens-ness of staying up all night, I only heard the result at 7.30 this morning on the news. (Though well done to ChrisChris for posting at 2.49am!) In times...

As anyone who’s visited our office in east London will know, Amnesty UK HQ is located in an untidy area of Shoreditch. But I like it. It’s hip, it’s happening and it’s got a lot of messy – and sometimes quite attractive – graffiti all...

No, it’s not one of the lesser-known stories from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but a Radio 4 programme from last night. I don’t catch as much R4 evening radio as I’d like to (whenever I tune into this 8pm slot I nearly always stumble...

I’ve written about it a couple of times already so won’t go through all the ins and outs, but just pose this question? Is the US state of Georgia really going to execute Troy Davis ? Yes, I know a trial jury found him guilty, a judge...

You can almost pass over the seemingly endless reports of yet more Taliban killings in Afghanistan or Pakistan. That, sadly, is how it seems to go with a bleak “fixed” situation. “Oh, more Taliban killings. Right”. You almost need to...

There’s very worrying news around about the possible poisoning of leading Russian human rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko. The French police have started an investigation after she and her family became ill on Monday. It seems the...

There was a sort of collective gasp in the office last week. People were circulating a news report about an influential Saudi cleric called Sheikh Habadan. He was on Saudi TV saying women should wear a niqab (full veil) but with only...

So, the US is angry because a US judge has ruled that 17 ethnic Uighur detainees held at Guantánamo Bay should be released into the United States. And who wouldn’t be in their place? What’s the world coming to when you can’t hold a few...

At first glance there’s something ridiculous about news of Iran’s “gender sensitive car ”. Could it even be a hoax story? (Well, apparently not). A government-backed Iranian car company called Iran Khodro is launching it next June, to...

I was recently watching My Beautiful Launderette on DVD. My girlfriend’s idea. I wasn’t massively keen. I’d seen it on TV in the eighties and remembered it as only ok-ish. But, hey, it was pretty good! It’s definitely strange though...

I was only saying two days ago that “good news” in the human rights world isn’t really a cue for unrestrained joy. Releasing a handful of political prisoners while leaving thousands in jail (Burma) is not exactly an occasion for...

Other Amnesty bloggers have got there before me, but it seems only right to say in this post that there’s a palpable sense of relief in the office today that Troy Davis has avoided execution in Georgia, USA – for now – following his...

“His guilt or innocence doesn't matter. No one should be incarcerated for 33 years in the shadow of the execution chamber. It is an act of barbarism to keep any man in those conditions.” I could easily have written it myself, but this...

It’s not all doom and gloom at Amnesty International you know! In fact – there’s excellent news right here in this very post. Mohamed Erraji , the Moroccan blogger who was facing a two-year sentence for remarks made about the Moroccan...

There was an amazing news item on Channel 4 News this week. It was a film of a Taliban compound in Afghanistan. Amongst other stuff it had a stunning “film within a film” (“supplied to us by the Taliban themselves”, said C4’s Alex...

More depressing news (sorry, but this is a human rights blog!) about executions in Japan around today. Three men in their sixties were hanged earlier this morning taking the number killed by the Japanese state this year to 13...

Just when you thought it was safe to tip-toe back into the blogosphere, you hear the depressing news that Morocco has jailed a blogger for two years . The person in question – Mohamed Erraji, a 29-year-old who blogs (Arabic only, and...

Breaking with the iron rule that everyone in the world must now write comment about the gun-totin’, bearskin-as-sofa-throw-owning, rather-nice-rectangular-glasses-wearing Sarah Palin, I’m not going to mention her in this post (oh … er...

Reports that Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth is “trapped” in Gaza after going there on the campaigning “peace boat” has got people talking again about the Israel blockade and Egypt’s closed border. I reckon that’s a good thing...