Northern Ireland has a racism problem. This guest blog by Michael Walker explores the extent of the problem and argues for legislative change.

Tomorrow is the twenty-fifth International Day of the Disappeared. Amnesty International has put together a two-minute campaign video highlighting the problem of enforced disappearances, emphasising the distress and grief...

In two parts of the world this week, journalists found themselves behind bars for helping expose the involvement of security forces in the massacre of civilians. When it happened in Myanmar, UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was...

One year on from the collapse of Stormont, Patrick Corrigan argues for a reform which would restore devolved government to Northern Ireland and its ability to legislate on rights issues

The Gordian knot is a legendary puzzle associated with Alexander the Great, famed for its near impossibility to unravel. Dealing with the past has become Northern Ireland’s Gordian knot, a problem which has proven intractable over...

The Gordian knot is a legendary puzzle associated with Alexander the Great, famed for its near impossibility to unravel. Dealing with the past has become Northern Ireland’s Gordian knot, a problem which has proven intractable over...

Northern Ireland goes to the polls today (Thursday) to elect new members of the Assembly at Stormont. If this feels like déjà vu to you, you’d be right. Voters elected a new Assembly less than ten months ago. But it collapsed in...

On Good Friday eighteen years ago something rather amazing happened. An agreement was signed that brought to an end decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Now the UK Government is proposing to scrap the Human Rights Act and...

A number of amendments have been proposed to the law in Northern Ireland which, if passed, may allow women to access abortions in circumstances of a fatal foetal abnormality, or where the pregnancy was as a result of rape or incest...

The Republic of Ireland gets the chance to make history on Friday. That’s when people go to the polls in a referendum on changing the Irish constitution to allow same-sex marriage. If a majority opt for Yes, then Ireland will become...

Excerpt of speech given by Amnesty International's Patrick Corrigan at a rally at Belfast City Hall on Saturday 31 January, against a "conscience clause" Bill proposed in the Northern Ireland Assembly: “What is proposed is not a...

In August 1971 the UK authorities arrested and interned hundreds of men in Northern Ireland. Fourteen of them were selected for "special treatment" - torture in a specially-built interrogation centre at a British Army camp. The men...

What is distinctive about the allegations surrounding Kincora Boys’ Home is not that child abuse took place. Sadly, that was all too commonplace in many children’s homes. What is uniquely shocking about Kincora are the allegations that...

But how long will she have to wait? Happy Belfast Pride! Thousands will take to the streets of Belfast later today for the city's annual Pride march, Ireland's largest. But Northern Ireland looks set to become an equality backwater for...

Expect to see more 'local homes for local people' protests in Belfast. Why would there not be, when the last one was so successful? Let's face the uncomfortable truth. Nigerian-born Michael Abiona was successfully intimidated from his...

"I was a refugee from Hitler's Germany in 1939 and I have been so well treated in England and Northern Ireland, and I just want that for everybody" Inge Radford at Saturday's march Saturday afternoon in Belfast saw 8,000 people march...

With the death of Maya Angelou, the world has lost a laureate of liberty. In tribute to Maya, here's her ode to freedom, 'Caged Bird'. A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his...

On April 14, over 200 girls, most of them aged between 16 and 18, were abducted as they slept, from their school in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria. More schoolgirls have been kidnapped since. All of these girls are missing, their...

Good Friday 1998 was a day of hope. After thirty years of violence, a new day seemed to be dawning as politicians embraced, then inked an agreement which held out the promise of lasting peace. As the Agreement turns sixteen, it is...

The United Nations has declared today (24th March) as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning gross human rights violations and for the dignity of victims. One of the purposes of the Day is to honour the memory of...