I tore myself away from the desk this morning and went to watch my girls swim. As I watched them splashing H2O everywhere, I thought about all those drowned in Vietnamese boats. Indonesian boats...Thirst for freedom is so universal. It is hard now to convey what restricted lives we lived in those far off 1970s in Czechoslovakia. We were watched constantly by secret police... Then many teenagers had come to terms with the possibility of torture or death and the secret police honestly did not bother me at the time. Of course there were things I would regret hugely like leaving people I loved still by all accounts I have had a very fortunate childhood ... and judging by this account even my exile appears almost lucky

Human kind
Ask most people what they are doing for International Human Rights Day (IHRD) and you're likely to be met with a look of blank incomprehension.
· Looking squarely at the Rights [SMH]

People the law forgot
It is almost two years since the Guantanamo prison camp opened. Its purpose is to hold people seized in the 'war on terror' and defined by the Bush administration as enemy combatants - though many appear to have been bystanders to the conflict. Images of Camp Delta's orange-jumpsuited, manacled detainees have provoked international outrage. But the real horror they face isn't physical hardship, it is the threat of infinite confinement, without trial or access to legal representation.
· Black Bottom of the barrel [Guardian (UK)]