Press release me, let me go

Amnesty’s released a major new report on the global arms trade today. Some of you may have spotted the story on ft.com or in the Guardian today. Essentially Blood at the Crossroads outlines how weapons transfers to already volatile...

It may well have escaped your attention this morning but the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, is here in the UK on a whistle-stop visit. He’s got a face-to-face meeting with Gordon Brown scheduled in his diary today. I’m sure...

So – the deal has been done. The papers have been signed. President Robert Mugabe has signed the historic power-sharing deal on stage with Zimbabwe’s new Prime Minister – Morgan Tsvangirai and leader of the breakaway opposition party...

Religious persecution, conflict around religious affairs and freedom of expression are issues that affect peoples lives on a daily basis but ones that we don’t usually associate as much with the western world. The Times has today...

More depressing news (sorry, but this is a human rights blog!) about executions in Japan around today. Three men in their sixties were hanged earlier this morning taking the number killed by the Japanese state this year to 13...

Just when you thought it was safe to tip-toe back into the blogosphere, you hear the depressing news that Morocco has jailed a blogger for two years . The person in question – Mohamed Erraji, a 29-year-old who blogs (Arabic only, and...

The Times carries a piece today , with some harrowing footage, about an excellent Human Rights Watch report revealing that civilian killings in Afghanistan from UN and NATO air strikes have tripled I the last year. It’s a very timely...

Unusual for Google , there’s no birthday cake or symbol of any sort on its home page to suggest that Google’s reached its 10th birthday today. Ten, eh? Normally this is the point where we say, ‘my, hasn’t time gone quickly?’ But on...

Breaking with the iron rule that everyone in the world must now write comment about the gun-totin’, bearskin-as-sofa-throw-owning, rather-nice-rectangular-glasses-wearing Sarah Palin, I’m not going to mention her in this post (oh … er...

Reports that Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth is “trapped” in Gaza after going there on the campaigning “peace boat” has got people talking again about the Israel blockade and Egypt’s closed border. I reckon that’s a good thing...

Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone… I wonder how much old Thaksin Shinawatra will be singing that famous Manchester City theme tune today. By all accounts, it would be hard for the former Thai Prime minister to feel more marginalised...

One of the things you tend to notice in doing human rights work is the amazing calm of people who have suffered horrible experiences. I’m sure there are also embittered people who are always unpleasant to everyone they meet after what...

Words (almost) fail me. Cuba’s detained a singer from a rock band and is reportedly set to charge him with the super-vague offence of “social dangerousness” or “subverting communist morality”. Ok, it might seem ludicrous (it is), but...

It’s a case of education, education, education today. No doubt thousands of students across England and Wales will be dreading the start of the new academic year next week. However, pity the situation of 400 Palestinians who don’t even...

Over the last 12 months, three countries have consistently kept us busy here in the Amnesty press office: Pakistan, Burma and Zimbabwe. And all three are in the news again today – and none of it is particularly positive. In Pakistan...

I spotted Michael Phelps, eight-time gold-medallist in Beijing, while I was walking round Hampstead Heath with my parents yesterday. He was having some pictures taken on a diving board by one of the ponds and we all got quite excited...

Amid the scandalous amount of coverage of stories such as the Italian snails taking up residence at Profumo’s old haunt of Cliveden there seemed to be little space on the TV news yesterday evening for the High Court’s ruling on the...

It’s on days like this when us London-based folk take our hats off to our colleagues north of the border: if ever there were a group of people who knew how to multi-task, it’s Amnesty’s Scotland office. While maintaining Amnesty’s high...

Sadly Iran seems to be getting rather a lot of attention from Amnesty at the moment. I’ve lost count of the number of Urgent Actions we’ve issued recently on the country, asking our members to write letters to stop executions or demand...

This morning's news that there’s been a bomb attack on a hospital in Pakistan is chilling. Coming so soon after Pervez Musharraf’s resignation yesterday, you really get a feeling of a country “in turmoil” (to use the pundit-friendly...