What a year 2012 has been. We've seen astounding courage from peaceful protesters in Syria and from individuals like Malala Yousufzai, continuing to call for education for girls despite the dangers. We've seen a punk band stand up to...

Next week, MPs will debate the Government’s Justice and Security Bill in the House of Commons for the first time. The Government says the Bill is necessary to protect national security, we say it’s unnecessary and a risk to one of our...

Update: Thank you for all your messages! Our volunteer translators created 70 postcards in Russian, which we'll post to Mehman so that he can read your messages - see photos of your messages . We can longer translate your message if...

Imagine meeting someone, falling in love, wanting to start a life together. But knowing that doing this could mean being imprisoned for life. Because the person you love is the same sex as you. This could be the future for anyone...

Yesterday amongst the voting for a new president, Senate seats and the House of Representatives, Californians had an opportunity to remove the death penalty from the state’s statute books. There are over 700 death row inmates In...

Has the last year been good to you? Perhaps you've had some great days out, kept up with friends? Moved up at work? Maybe it's been a dream year. Perhaps you've found love, had a baby, travelled the world... So spare a thought for Gao...

We've launched a new report on solitary confinment , which details the lengths California is willing to take to isolate prisoners -sometimes for as long as 20 years or more. More than 3,000 prisoners in California are in 'Secrutiy...

One year ago at 11.08pm, Troy Anthony Davis was executed by the State of Georgia, despite a massive global outcry against the flawed system that killed him. More than 60,000 of us in the UK emailed the authorities, asking them to make...

The whereabouts of the 22 Syrians below are unknown. Their families don't know if they're alive or dead. The authorities refuse to disclose any information about their whereabouts or their well-being. Today is the International Day of...

I would say I'm shocked by the news that Nadezhda, Maria and Ekaterina, members of punk band Pussy Riot, have been jailed for 2 years for 'hooliganism on the grounds of religous hatred'. But I am not shocked. It does not surprise me at...

I've just spent a very chilling few minutes in a 40-foot black shipping container, delivered earlier this week from India. This container doesn't house exported trade goods from Asia, but an audio-visual art installation invoking some...

In a couple of hours, Londoners are in for quite a shock. We're going to be taking up a little extra room in the bus lanes with... a 17-tonne armoured tank. Try getting on one of those with a pay-as-you-go Oyster card. So, I hear you...

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are killed, injured, raped, forced to flee from their homes and face untold suffering due to the unregulated arms trade - something we could change this summer with the first global Arms...

We're in Westminster with a small army of school and university students to urge the UK government to champion an Arms Trade Treaty that disarms dictators, warlords and child soldiers at the UN negotiations next month. Follow their...

Uniting for an Arms Trade Treaty - because of your emails and letters MPs around the UK are writing to David Cameron urging him to publically support for a robust arms trade treaty that protects human rights and saves lives. In May we...

Within days, local authorities in Baia Mare, Romania will move around 70 Roma families from their homes in the Craica settlement to an office building. Others who have refused to accept this relocation risk homelessness. Those not...

“I could no longer live there because our income was destroyed” – Pastor Christian Imagine an oil spill and what comes to mind? Photos of seabirds washed up on tarred shores? Newsreels of people in biohazard suits on emergency clean-up...

As I write this the dedicated human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is lying, close to unconscious, in Bahrain’s Military Hospital. Unless the Bahrain authorities act quickly it is highly likely that he will die there. His journey...

In a week that marked a year of protests in Syria we issued a report highlighting the use of torture in detention in the country. We also continue to call on the Russian authorities to help stop the bloodshed . In posting both on...

Amnesty campaigners Amy Summers and Bethan Cansfield joined us on Facebook for a live Q&A on the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. For those of you that couldn't join us live we've put all the questions we answered during...