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2015 (20)
Nov 25 2015 2:39PM
Girls in Sierra Leone need us

By Hassatou Sambou, Country Coordinator for Senegal, Sierra Leone and Mauritania Today, the world will celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Yes, because even though we’re in 2015, 35% of women...

Nov 11 2015 6:50PM
When the dust settles: Burma election

Written by James Lovatt, Country Coordinator for Burma Sunday was a bit of an odd day. As a huge number of citizens in Burma were starting their celebrations from a likely NLD victory, Amnesty UK had a number of our activists...

Oct 30 2015 5:57PM
Constructive resilience: the Baha’i way to respond to human rights abuses

In Iran, followers of the Baha’i faith face discrimination, arrest and arbitrary detention, some have even been executed because of their religion. Although founded in 1863, the country's constitution does not recognise and protect the...

Oct 13 2015 2:53PM
If you can read this, thank a teacher – reflections on World Teacher’s Day and human rights in Bahrain

Written by Lucy Barnett, Country Coordinator for Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. Teachers… you remember the ones who bored you to tears, the ones who spoke like drones and seemingly had no passion for their subject. The ones you...

Aug 14 2015 11:43AM
Women's rights at risk in Iran: learning about the reality at the Houses of Parliament

In May, human rights defender Narges Mohammadi was arrested in Iran. Though she has poor health and doctors have said that she is too ill to be in jail, she remains at Tehran’s Evin Prison. On 14 July, I joined rights activists and...

Aug 10 2015 3:50PM
Eritrea: bring back Ibrahim's mother

Ibrahim was born in the 1980s in 'The Field' – the part of Eritrea that had been 'liberated' by those fighting for the independence of the country, from the murderous regime of Mengistu Hailemariam, dictator of Ethiopia. Many young...

Aug 2 2015 8:32PM
A solitary hope?

Torture has written some of the bloodiest lines of history. The heretic’s fork, the Judas cradle and other medieval devices might be museum curios now, but Amnesty has evidence of torture in 141 countries during the last five years. It...

Jul 13 2015 5:52PM
Still missing. Twenty years is too long to wait for truth and justice.

On Saturday I stood on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields to remember the over 8000 men and boys who were killed in the Srebrenica genocide twenty years ago. We remembered them and the thousands more people ‘ disappeared ’ off the...

Jul 10 2015 2:47PM
A paradise for human rights at Hampton Court

To reach the Amnesty garden that celebrated human rights since Magna Carta at last week’s Hampton Court Flower Show, the crowd first had to flow past the Winnie the Pooh and then the Mad Hatters Tea Party gardens. The Pooh garden...

Jun 1 2015 6:22PM
Defend the human rights defender! Take action for Narges Mohammadi!

In early May, Narges Mohammadi, a distinguished human rights defender who is well-known within Iran and beyond, was arrested at her home. Security forces took her to Tehran's Evin Prison. Behind bars her health is rapidly deteriorating...

Jun 1 2015 6:02PM
No More Stolen Sisters: Justice for the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Canada

This blog is by Noa Kleinman who has recently retired as North America Country Coordinator, after 20 years. Indigenous women and girls in Canada are being murdered and disappeared at such a high rate that it amounts to a national human...

May 11 2015 11:10AM
Families are stronger than cages

By Lucy Barnett, Country Coordinator – Bahrain and United Arab Emirates Friday marks the International Day of Families. The theme this year is ‘men in charge? Gender equality and children’s rights in contemporary families’ and it got...

Apr 30 2015 1:08PM
Looking for a place to call home: forced evictions in Colombia

María is tired of being forced to move from place to place. The 54-year-old adjusts her colourful headscarf and sighs heavily. She is one of Colombia’s six million forcibly displaced people. For years María called El Tamarindo home...

Apr 21 2015 6:20PM
Free speech in Turkey is in crisis. Take urgent action.

Written by Barbara Lodge, Country Coordinator for Turkey If Prime Minister Thatcher had had the thin skin of Turkey’s President Erdoğan, political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe would have been in and out of prison. Despite cartooning her as...

Mar 11 2015 12:00AM
Land and Conflict in Colombia

From Ian McGarr, our Country Coordinator on Colombia. As the decade long armed conflict has raged between government forces, paramilitary organisation and guerrilla groups in Colombia, civilians have borne the brunt. During this time...

Mar 3 2015 4:31PM
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Take action for prisoners of conscience in Eritrea

Guest blogger Alex Jackson is our country expert on Eritrea and Somalia. The late nineties and early noughties were momentous years. I was living in Eritrea, and war with Ethiopia had consumed the country. Our passion for peace and...

Feb 18 2015 12:01PM
Silencing the people of the Chittagong Hills

The Indigenous people of the Chittagong Hills (CHT) are forbidden to talk to outsiders without security forces being present according to a new Bangladesh Government directive. ‘Outsiders’ includes people of their own country as well...

Feb 16 2015 1:17AM
Cupid gets away with wearing a blindfold… but justice needs perfect vision.

Cupid is especially busy on Valentine’s Day, but his methods leave much to chance. The mischievous love god blindfolds himself before firing his arrow through a new lover’s heart. An indiscriminate approach, but those arrows are pretty...

Jan 13 2015 4:37PM
Zimbabwe: plus ca change...

President Mugabe, his wife Grace and family are on holiday. As usual, they are spending time in Singapore in some luxury. Back home Zimbabweans are struggling to keep body and soul together . Businesses have closed at a rate of knots...

Jan 8 2015 10:03AM
Cuba comes in from the cold...

Who saw that coming? Last month, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro appeared on TV, in carefully orchestrated, simultaneous broadcasts, to announce a prisoner swap. This was the start of a new era of rapprochement after more than...