Apologies as FT pulls our Shell ad

You go to all the hard work and then at the last moment it all goes a bit ‘Pete Tong’. Welcome to the world of Amnesty’s press office.

Yesterday we were utterly convinced that our ad highlighting Shell’s behaviour in the Niger Delta was going to be placed in the Financial Times.

It was going to be an excellent reward for the hard work of our bloggers in helping raise funds to pay for it.
And then at 4.58pm yesterday we get an e-mail from the FT saying they are not going to run it. To describe ourselves as disappointed is a bit of an understatement – especially as the Metro and the Evening Standard didn’t have any objections.

So we’ve been busy this morning trying to make some noise about it. There’s a press release already up on our site, and two influential blogs have already picked up on it, Liberal Conspiracy and royaldutchshellplc.com.

There’s also an ad van circulating around central London right now and you can follow its progress with live tweets. And of course if you get the chance, please watch the video up the top, there.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget about the reason why we’re doing all this. Gas flaring, the burning of gas produced as part of oil extraction, coupled with numerous oil spills by Shell has left local communities with little option but to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land, and breathe in air that stinks of oil and gas.

There’s enough human rights violated there for anyone to run a story, well nearly anyone…