Patrick Corrigan

Today is the 45th anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr.'s " I Have A Dream " speech , delivered to a crowd of more than 250,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. It is undoubtedly one of the finest...

Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ( wiki biography here ) received an enthusiastic tribute from columnist Susan McKay in the pages of today's Irish News ( And...

If the Chinese government provided a masterclass in how to prevent unwelcome protests at the Beijing Olympics, it looks like the Denver authorities may have been paying attention in time for this week's Democratic Party National...

"300 Irish republican ex-prisoners are to attempt to have their convictions overturned" according to Henry McDonald in a story in yesterday's Guardian and repeated extensively elsewhere ( Daily Telegraph for instance) today. According...

He may not even know it himself yet, but Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness may soon be on a plane to the Philippines as the latest stop in his blossoming ( and occasionally satirised ) career as one of the world...

As the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) deliver their first Taser shock , it's been announced that an application has been made for a judicial review into the decision-making process which led to the deployment of the...

My colleague Fionna is far to modest to blog it herself, but she was a guest on BBC Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence programme a couple of days ago to discuss new film, Standard Operating Procedure, which deals with the torture meted out...

I am too young to remember where I was when I heard Kennedy was shot, but I will never forget the growing horror with which I listened to the car radio ten years ago today as I headed south on holidays with Rachel, my then girlfriend...

Mick Fealty at Slugger O'Toole (the daddy of 'em all, in NI blog terms) has asked for help in spreading the word about the 'political blogger' category in the new Slugger Awards . So here goes. The Slugger Awards are in their first...

As reported by the BBC , Westminster's Joint Committee on Human Rights has published the report of its year-long inquiry into proposals for a UK Bill of Rights and has come out firmly in support of the idea. So far I have only speed...

Should this afternoon's opening ceremony to the Beijing Olympics be banned? That, surely, is the shocking logical conclusion of the Beijing Olympic rules being bandied about at the moment to justify the banning of flags from the likes...

There were more politicians at today's Belfast Pride parade than you could shake a stick at. Or at least an Amnesty placard which, once again, was the hottest item in town. In the wake of the now infamous series of anti-gay comments...

Today, for the first time ever, unionist politicians will attend the Belfast Pride parade – and not as anti-gay protestors. In the wake of a row started by the homophobic comments of DUP MP Iris Robinson and heightened this week by a...

The US (or at least parts of it) continues to wrestle with its conscience, not to mention its pocket-book, in the matter of the continued use of the death penalty. Maryland is just one of the States currently examining the future of...

The Daily Telegraph today reports (somewhat gleefully) on the declining membership of the Labour Party and the UK's political parties genrally. Labour Party member numbers are down from a 1997 high of 405,000 to only 177,000 today...

Peter Tatchell and last night's Amnesty International Pride Lecture have been at the centre of something of a Northern Ireland media storm for the last couple of days. Peter, with his widely reported comments on Iris Robinson MP, King...

You have to hand it to Peter Tatchell . The veteran gay rights campaigner – who will be giving the Amnesty International Pride Lecture this evening – really knows how to maximise media attention. In the wake of Iris Robinson MP's...

A New York Times story of this headline raises important questions about freedom of the press in reporting an unpopular war, which has now generated over 4,000 US fatalities and over 170 UK military deaths , including two from Northern...

As previously blogged in more detail, the BBC is broadcasting a two-part radio play on the life of early human rights advocate and activist (and much more), Thomas Paine. First part was broadcast today on Radio 4 as its Saturday play...

The rest of the world is destined to be disappointed by every American President. This is normal. Don't be depressed. Don't be surprised. American Presidents look after American interests, not European or anyone else's. Sometimes our...