Well-known human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger and celebrated singer-songwriter Billy Bragg will both be in Belfast as part of Amnesty International’s contribution to the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s.

 

Jagger will deliver the annual Amnesty International Lecture while Bragg will serve up a special celebration of songs of freedom and protest.

 

Nicaraguan-born Jagger has been a prominent human rights campaigner for the last thirty years. In 1981 she helped rescue 40 captured refugees from a US-backed death squad in Honduras, challenging the heavily armed men with the shout: "you will have to kill us all!" It was the turning point in what, for the previous decade, had been a life lived in the celebrity spotlight. Since then she has worked on a wide range of human rights issues, including with Amnesty on campaigns against torture, the death penalty and violence against Women's rights's rightss rights's rights's rights's rights.

 

On the fiftieth anniversary of Amnesty International, Bianca Jagger reflects on the human rights revolution which has wrought fundamental change in the post-War world and, in 2011, combined the power of social media and public demonstration to challenge and topple repressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Jagger says it is an unstoppable revolution because it embodies the simple demand of people everywhere that they be treated with dignity. 

 

On Thursday 27 October, celebrated singer-songwriter Billy Bragg brings his guitar to Belfast for a special Amnesty International night of songs of freedom and protest.

 

Mixing his own memorable back catalogue with personal favourites from the likes of Woody Guthrie, and explaining the back-story to the songs, Bragg presents a unique evening of celebration for Amnesty. 

 

Tickets for both events are available via www.belfastfestival.com