Press release me, let me go

A journalist working on the Google story called here yesterday asking us to wrack our brains for other examples of where companies had pulled out of countries because of human rights concerns. The main examples we came up with were...

I actually thought I was still dreaming this morning when I heard that Google was going to stop censoring Internet search results in China (and, if necessary, pull out if the country altogether). But it’s true – you can read all about...

Sometimes the world of the media throws you a bit of a curve ball. And so it was today. What am I talking about? None other than the Daily Mail putting its weight behind a human rights pressure group campaigning against forced...

Incredibly, it’s now eight years since the first shackled and orange-jump-suited prisoners were taken to the notorious prison camp at Guantánamo. Eight years. This is a long time if you’ve been found guilty of a crime and sent to...

Journalists and their editors make many difficult decisions, perhaps none more so than whether to quote from or broadcast material for which they cannot be absolutely sure of the source but where if genuine the contents reveal evidence...

Today’s report published by ten aid agencies about the volatile situation in Sudan has kick-started the debate about the need for greater international attention to be paid to that country this year. Simon Tisdall’s briefing in today’s...

Reports that the attorney general Lady Scotland will effectively give the Israeli authorities an assurance that none of its leaders will ever face arrest in the UK are … troubling. On what basis are the UK authorities even promising...

There was a fascinating interview on Channel 4 News last night, as Jon Snow spoke to journalist Maziar Bahari about his three months of interrogation and torture in Iran’s Evin prison. Bahari described the bizarre behaviour of his...

If the alleged would-be Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indeed “trained” by al-Qai’da in Yemen it’s not exactly surprising that Yemen is now on everyone’s lips. But how to react? Closing embassies and talking about Yemen’s...

Everyone loves a list. Shortlist and Stylist mazagine’s popularity are testimony to the success of the format. All the media are chock-a-block with end-of-year lists. And … well, not wanting to be left out, here’s my own end-of-year...

With only six days to go until his scheduled execution on 29 December, it’s a grim advent calendar counting down the days for the family of Akmal Shaikh, a British man on ‘death row’ in China. You can see an interview with his brother...

I’ve blogged before about how the Israeli ambassador to the UK Ron Prosor seems to like to slip in oddball references to things like The Muppets and foreign owners of English football clubs when he’s talking about the Middle East peace...

Cambodia today deported 22 Uighurs who had fled China to escape persecution, returning them, at Beijing’s behest, to an uncertain fate. It’s a sickening development. Despite the notoriety of the Chinese authorities when it comes to...

The murder of Tulay Goren by her own father would be shocking wherever it happened, and Amnestys work on Turkey, Iraq and several other countries clearly shows that honour killings are a deadly threat to women and girls in numerous...

Listening on the radio this morning to a Scottish man stranded in Lanzarote airport in the Canary Islands because of Flyglobespan’s collapse , I thought … this sounds familiar. Not just because the holiday-company-collapses-leaving...

You could be forgiven for missing news today on a report from Parliament’s prestigious Joint Committee on Human Rights on the impact of British business on human rights overseas. It is covered in the Financial Times , and there was a...

There was an excellent expose in The Times newspaper today. An investigation by the paper rubbished claims by the Sri Lankan government that a video of a Tamil Tiger fighter being executed during the recent conflict was fabricated. The...

As regular readers of this blog may know, I always weigh my words carefully. But today I’m weighing them with still greater care. Why? Well, I’m just wondering what it must be like to bash out 1,000 words and get paid a cool £90,000...

When I first heard a ghost-voiced Beth Gibbons from Portishead croaking “Give me a reason to love you / Give me a reason to be, a woman / I just wanna be a woman” on their debut album, I was …. impressed. Mid-90s hype around Britpop...

One of the stories the Anglo-Iranian comic Shappi Khorsandi tells is how Iran once sent hit men all the way to west London to murder her father, the poet Hadi Khorsandi. Thankfully they were bunglers and 25 years later Shappi plays it...