I noticed that Twitter comment on Channel 4’s The Execution Of Gary Glitter last night was almost entirely negative but, to be honest, I didn’t see what the big problem was. Quite a few people complain the programme failed to add...

The House of Commons yesterday debated the Coroners and Justice Bill. After a ‘highly charged’ debate, the government scraped through new powers, with a majority of just eight votes, which enable the Justice Minister to suspend any...

This afternoon, the House of Commons will debate the Coroners and Justice Bill. It looks like the UK government will use the Bill to further increase the secrecy that seems to be pervading some aspects of UK justice. Public access is...

There was a song from my goth-punk youth called “Do You Believe In The Westworld?”, one of Theatre Of Hate’s finest, and to riff on that: do you believe in the death penalty? Strange question to ask a reader of a human rights blog...

A couple of posts ago, my colleague Steve B was talking about what it must be like to be walking down a street in Madrid when you get stopped by what turns out to be a violent gang of police officers …. … which made me think … about...

It’s days like today which remind me why I enjoy working at Amnesty. I was fortunate to be among nearly 300 people from all over the country who’d come to London to take part in Amnesty’s mass lobby of Parliament to call on the...

It’s days like today which remind me why I enjoy working at Amnesty. I was fortunate to be among nearly 300 people from all over the country who’d come to London to take part in Amnesty’s mass lobby of Parliament to call on the...

Picture the scene – you’re walking down the street (a sunny one, as it happens, in Madrid) and are stopped by the police, who ask to see your identity papers. When they refuse to identify themselves with their ID numbers, you refuse to...

So it all starts here. Welcome one and all to the 2009 Greetings Card Campaign . From 1 November each year through to 31 January Amnesty International encourages people in the UK to send a message of solidarity to those whose rights...

I’m still staggered that anyone could think it’s OK to partially-bury someone in the ground and throw stones at them until they’re dead. I’d be pretty sickened if I heard that some sadistic criminal had done it. But for this punishment...

Things are once again looking bad in Zimbabwe. Despite a burst of optimism after Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe formed the ‘Inclusive Government’, it doesn’t seem to be working out. Unless, it seems, you’re the UK Home Office, who...

… is the hypothetical question posed by a Channel 4 drama coming out in November. I say posed , but what we’re getting, apparently, is a 90-minute feature-length drama – The Execution of Gary Glitter – “set in an imaginary Britain in...

Back in 2006 I took a day out from the Amnesty office to “job-swap” at the news desk of The Independent at their (then) office at Canary Wharf in east London. All very interesting. For one thing: what a studious atmosphere! More like a...

Have a look at this clip from French TV channel TF1 (about 20 minutes in – you can fast forward). You’ll see Armoured Personnel Carriers transporting soldiers to brutally put down a peaceful demo in Conakry, Guinea, last month. When...

As the old Buzzcocks favourite puts it, “Noise annoys”, and at first glance there’s something almost comical about claims that music was used to torture “war on terror” prisoners. Loud music can be annoying , but it doesn’t actually...

When Palestinian men suffer “light blows” at the hands of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem it’s apparently not worth prosecuting. Or so it appears. According to Yesh Din, a human rights group that has taken a case on behalf of some...

Akmal Shaikh, a man from north London, is currently facing execution , in the next few days, in China. There’s strong evidence that he may be mentally ill, suffering from bipolar disorder: he had reportedly left London to set up an...

An attempt by the UK Border Agency last week to forcibly remove some 44 refused Iraqi asylum seekers and send them back to Baghdad appears to have been conducted by the Keystone Cops – or rather the Keystone Private Security...

A couple of years ago I had two weeks off work because I was called up for jury service. A cushy number? Not really. Going to Snaresbrook crown court every morning to hear about a large-scale cocaine smuggling case was – interesting...

First it was Disney films and Robert Louis Stevenson adaptations ( Kidnapped !), the Bond films (Roger Moore period), then the adolescent stuff – Jaws , The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (couldn’t get in, it was an “18”-rater!), and then...