We decided to launch the AI Report 2007 in Beirut, part of a volatile region in which the human rights record is a challenging one.
A week prior to the event, with the help of Lebanese AI members, we had almost everything prepared. Then, four days before the launch, the country was rocked by an explosion […]

In her 2007 Report speech, Secretary General Irene Khan described how “powerful governments… deliberately fomented fear to erode human rights.”
In my job at Amnesty International I think a lot about torture. I think about how governments are able to make people think that torture is acceptable — at least in some circumstances. And I […]

Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General, has followed up her post on Comment is Free with a post on one of the world’s most popular blog sites - The Huffington Post.
Our world today is deeply polarized. Comparisons are increasingly being made with the Cold War but in many ways it is more complex and dangerous […]

As we pulled together press packs in English and Russian for today’s simultaneous launch of the AIR in Moscow, we wondered nervously how many people would come. Not only was it a wilting 32 degrees C, but the evening before we had heard from a group of journalists and civil society activists how difficult it […]

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 […]

Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General, has posted an entry on the popular Comment is Free blog on the website of the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
There was real optimism in international relations in the early 1990s - the Berlin wall had fallen; democracy and freedom were on the march in many parts of the world; peace […]

There are a few major tasks that need to be completed before the public gets its first look at each year’s Amnesty International Report online. All of the entries need to be written, checked, and formatted, images need to be added, video and audio material needs to be uploaded - and then they all need […]