As I stood in the launch room of the Foreign Press Association in London, watching the videos, photos and individual testimonies of those on the front line of human rights, I felt a genuine swell of emotion and pride wash over me. Which I had certainly not been expecting!

The Editorial and Publishing Programme has been working with researchers, campaigners and policy and legal advisers for at least six months, trying to ensure we represent the organization’s research and the concerns of the individuals we work with and for accurately and powerfully.

At times, I lost sight of the bigger picture. You have to inure yourself somewhat to the horrors you are reading as you edit example after example of abuse, discrimination and repression. You have to focus on the process of ensuring the book is published and the stories are told.

We worked with so many colleagues around the Movement — pouring over photographs, checking facts, designing colour schemes, honing prose, ensuring consistencies, supporting media and press materials, helping choose website designers. We were not always allowed the luxury of shock, empathy, anger.

But, at the launch, it all came flooding in. It felt like a truly important day — a day when people who share their stories with us got them told; a day when almost every single country and territory in the world could not escape the spotlight; a day when more pressure was put on governments and other leaders to do the right thing for humans and human rights globally.

Irene Khan said that, despite all the abuses Amnesty International documented and the politics of fear peddled by those in power, hope was still very much alive — through the actions of civil society. Today it was impossible not to believe her.

Helen Barron is the Deputy Director of Editorial and Publishing at Amnesty International