Amnesty International

I woke up early, stumbled up the road and fell asleep again on the hour bus ride to Glasgow. Once there I bought myself breakfast - a hazelhut yogurt, which reminded me of Switzerland, then found a spot with a view of the city to enjoy it. When slightly more awake I wondered downtown and made my way the the Amnesty International Regional Conference.

All the wonderful introductions and welcoming took place. Then the speaker gave us a few facts about their sexual & reproductive rights policy consultation (abortion) and split us up into groups to discuss what stance AI should take on it. Ofcourse I went in guns blazing ... ahh yes, AI should make a decision, how can they just pass the buck and say 'we're not dealing with it because it's too controversial etc'. Well I soon learnt that I'm young and older people have a lot more knowledge than me, so after that I decided to shut my trap and just listen for the rest of the day. Yes, it would be great if AI did make up its mind on abortion, but it's a much bigger picture than that.

Later Neil Mackay (journalist), Alyn Smith (MEP) and Jeremy Croft (Head of Policy & Govt Affairs AIUK) gave talks about terrorism, security and human rights. Neil was great and he read an extract from his book War on Truth. He's a typical Northern Irish fella and looked as excited as a little boy on Christmas Eve when they handed him a tartan wrapped gift to say thanks for being there. Alyn was impressive, explaining that it scares him how much this country runs on 'fear' yet the masses don't question what is fed to them through the media. And the terrorists are not all wrong, rather it's a reaction to the West's actions.

After that we split into groups again to talk about if AI should deal directly with al-Qa'ida. Well no conclusions were come to - where would they start, how would they do it, would they lose their non-biast reputation, blah di blah. The waters are just so murky. (Hmmm, how familiar.)

A tough day, no-one wants to hear that around 1000 people are dying everyday through the use of arms. I don't want to know that governments are not listening to reason.

However a very good day, if not a little intimidating, as I learnt a lot from being around extremely well informed people.

(Nope, it's not black and white)