Yes Minister... it is a human rights issue

So we now know that the CIA used ‘waterboarding’, mock execution, ‘rectal feeding’, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other cruel and degrading treatment against detainees. What we still don’t know is how deeply the UK government...

The bloody conflict in Syria has turned into the world’s worst refugee crisis in a generation. Around 4 million people have fled the country to escape the violence, persecution and hardships. 95% of those people are now living in just...

Today is International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women and I am angry. Why? It feels as if we have spent the last fifty years – and beyond – fighting Hydra – the many-headed serpent. Each time its opponents cut off a head...

Why do people leave their homes, travel by foot many hundreds of miles, risk attack, exploitation, starvation and hunger, to board rickety, crowded boats (the kind that are known to have sank previously , killing hundreds of people in...

At a fundamental level, human rights are an assertion of protection from the government and a claim for the protection of the government. Power has the potential for good and ill, which is why power must be regulated and laden with...

With defections to UKIP , an embarrassed Ministerial resignation , pensions and NHS funding dominating the news surrounding this year’s Conservative Party Conference, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Human Rights were far from...

So every year the Advocacy team at Amnesty UK go on a three week round the country 'tour' of the Party Political Conferences. You are jealous, I know, I can tell. Actually, for us political nerds it is a great moment in time to take...

The Girl Summit , held to galvanise action to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Child, Early and Forced Marriage was held this week in London. It had extraordinary political support with David Cameron and three other Cabinet...

Oh the irony that social media users are currently so distracted by the Prime Minister’s chess board manoeuvring of Ministers ahead of next year’s election, that they aren’t talking about a law (being debated today) which would justify...

In China “picking quarrels” is a serious criminal offence that can lead to spending lengthy amounts of time languishing in jail. Last week Amnesty highlighted the plight of human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang who was formally arrested for...

Anyone familiar with the work of Amnesty International will know that in some places criticism of the government can get you into trouble. I nearly fell off my chair last week when I saw that Conor Burns MP had referred Oxfam GB to the...

Much has been written about violence against women over the last few weeks. More than 200 girls kidnapped in north eastern Nigeria by the Boko Haram. Meriam Ibrahim sentenced to death for apostasy and adultery in Sudan. Two girls gang...

The date: October 2013. The place: off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. The death toll: 364 people. The date: January 2014 . The place: off the coast of the Greek island of Farmakonisi. The death toll: 11 people, including...

As I walked to work today I had a skip in my step. A perfect combination of early morning sunshine and Nina Simone’s dulcet tones singing ‘I wish I knew how it feels to be free’ (which always reminds me of Amnesty’s local group in York...

Over the last two weeks, women have been defending their rights at the United Nations 58th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York. While negotiations over the minutiae of wording in the final agreement may seem a million...

Are you sitting comfortably? If you are reading this blog, the chances are you are using an electronic device - a computer, a mobile phone, or possibly a tablet. You may be sat in the comfort of your own home, be at work, in a café or...

'In many cases the wounds show that the victims were shot at close range. About 10 of the dead we found were women and some were children. One child, aged about 10, was shot multiple times and also mutilated; he had bullet wounds in...

As Prince Charles visits Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week I hope he's under no illusion that outside of the palatial royal residences of Riyadh and Doha there are serious human rights abuses being perpetrated. This is the Prince’s...

This week the Lobbying Bill (the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill) reached the end of the parliamentary process, gaining Royal Ascent and becoming law. For us at Amnesty International...

Whilst I’m no expert on the democratic record of English monarchs, an alarm bell rang yesterday when I saw that the government were introducing a ‘Henry VIII Clause’ to the Lobbying Bill (the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party...