Press release me, let me go

There’s an amazing article from Hicham Yezza on the Guardian’s CiF site today. He’s the young man from Nottingham University who was arrested and held for six days without charge on suspicion of the "instigation, preparation and...

Another day and another Briton is arrested in Beijing for mounting a pro-Tibet demonstration. Philip Kirk, along with Australian-Canadian Nicole Rycroft, scaled a hoarding outside the China Central Television building. Worringly, this...

It seems as if no amount of high-level international pressure from celebrities or state leaders, mass demonstrations in the world’s capitals or even a petition for an international arrest warrant will stop the Sudanese government’s...

That old horse chestnut has cropped up again: you know the one – ‘ isn’t the woman partly to blame for being raped if she’s drunk?’ The topic was kick-started yesterday after authorities overturned the decision to reduce the amount of...

The Games seem to be going pretty well in Beijing, overshadowed of course by the shocking events in Georgia. If reports are true and Russia has now ordered an end to the conflict, hopefully people there can start repairing their lives...

The disturbing and immensely depressing events in Georgia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia have, of course, dominated the news for the entire weekend. Google News this morning shows 11,111 news items and counting, and even the Beijing Olympics...

After years of waiting (and campaigning) it all kicks off in China in a couple of hours. If you watch or listen to the BBC, you’d think that nothing else was happening in the world but the Beijing Olympics – I think BBC journalists who...

Like a certain pair of British protestors highlighting Tibet and human rights in Beijing yesterday, George Bush’s recent remarks about China and human rights were well-timed. A “blunt condemnation” according to the Times, and there’s...

The Home Office released its latest figures on the amount of times police officers have used or drawn the Taser over the past 12 months yesterday. This came as no surprise because there are now not only more officers carrying this...

Too late for the UK papers, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s death last night is, as you might expect, featuring heavily in online and broadcast coverage today (and Global Voices has some blog reaction). For anyone who cares about literature...

OK so it’s like that is it! The Chinese authorities may have relented and unblocked our website , but as an organisation we have been banned from China for years, and frankly anyone brave enough to speak out about human rights in the...

It really doesn’t feel like a year to me. And I’m living in the UK. I bet that the people of Darfur are really struggling to believe that it was a year – a whole year, since the UN Security Council agreed to deploy the world’s largest...

So, the countdown to the Games is now in single figures, the athletes are arriving at Beijing’s glossy new airport, and China is ratcheting up yet another broken promise to its ever-increasing list . Today it’s been revealed that the...

Today marks the start of the ten-day countdown to the Olympic Games in Beijing and Amnesty has been studying the Chinese authorities’ human rights performance very carefully since they won the right to host the Games back in 2001. We...

This weekend the sun was out, the sky was blue, and your Amnesty press officer was dashing round like a mad thing. The reason? Baha Mousa, the Joint Committee on Human Rights , and a little dash of Iran. For those who don’t remember...

They went barmy in Berlin. It was delirium in Deutschland. Ok, so Barack Obama is looking like the world’s “hottest” politician. Or at least the most popular foreign one in Germany. The “JFK in ’63” comparisons are everywhere. This is...

The Chinese authorities announced yesterday that Beijing will set up specially designated zones for protesters during next month's Olympics . This then became a massive media story, with many seeing it as a sign that China's government...

I always think those posters of missing dogs or cats on lampposts are unbearably sad. Someone loves those animals. The owners are heartbroken and desperate. They go to the trouble of putting up posters. They offer rewards. And then...

After more than twelve years on the run, Radovan Karadzic – who stands accused of crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in the appalling abuses in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early nineties – has been arrested. The...

I think it would be fair to say that the nation is rarely riveted to the Parliament Channel. Aside from the very punchiest Punch and Judy moments of PMQs, it doesn’t really have too many watercooler moments. Or any. But human rights...