Midnight's Children

The stories of millions of midnights children who were forced to flee their homes to the other side of the new Pakistan-India border in August 1947 are horrific millions of people slaughtered and made homeless.

Some of these can be found in the BBCs new online archives, a brilliant resource which you can spend hours on.

Amnesty is very concerned about the blasphemy laws which Pakistan operates today they are vague and wide-ranging, and basically permit the persecution of any person who is a member of a religious minority, be they Ahmadi Muslim, Hindu or Christian.

Younis Masih, a Christian Pakistani, has been convicted under this law after what might have been an unfair trial. The lawyer defending him has suffered attempts on his life, and Younis family are living in hiding.

This abuse of minorities, and trampling on freedom of religion, is surely not what Pakistans founders had in mind.

Amnestys latest annual report on human rights in India and Pakistan are here.

The other story to catch my eye this morning was the arrest warrants for Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife on corruption charges.

What these warrants will not mention is the catalogue of human rights abuses that took place during Thaksins premiership including state security forces disappearing and torturing people in the South, and a war on drugs that saw thousands executed without trial by the police.

I was recently in Manchester staying with my family and there was heated discussion about Thaksins purchase of our second major footie club. I wonder also what the late Tony Wilson (RIP) would have made of the purchase of a great Mancunian institution by this man??