"A Human Right - To Protest": Human Rights Lecture 2024 with Kate Adie Event

Kate will draw on her vast experience as a journalist and broadcaster to discuss the implications generally of how journalists and broadcasters manage the challenges of human rights issues: both as they witness them being exploited; as well as how they respond through their own (Western) lens to what they see. She will also bring to this the concrete example of the uprisings in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 which Kate observed first hand.

While discussing a historical example and personal experience, Kate will also argue that, in journalism, human rights are still at the heart of many news stories today.

The annual Human Rights lecture is sponsored jointly by Amnesty International (Southampton group) and the University of Southampton’s School of Humanities.

About the speaker

Kate Adie grew up in Sunderland and joined BBC Radio Durham after leaving Newcastle University where she read Swedish. She worked as a Producer at BBC Radio Bristol, before joining BBC South Today as a reporter. As BBC Chief News Correspondent, she covered major news stories, including both Gulf Wars, the storming of the Iranian Embassy, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. Kate currently presents Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent.

About the Human Rights Lecture Series

The annual Human Rights Lecture series has now held nine distinguished events organised between members of the local Southampton Amnesty International branch and the School of Humanities in the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

The series has welcomed speakers from a wide range of areas involving human rights, including charity workers, lawyers, academics, and activists including Lord Ken MacDonald, Dame Anne Owers, Camila Batmanghelidjh, Kate Allen (Director of Amnesty International UK), Peter Tatchell, Prof Philippe Sands, Prof Penny Green, and Prof Christine Chinkin.  Topics have ranged across disciplinary fields including law and human rights; police and human rights; women’s rights; children’s rights; LGBT rights, as well as different geographical areas.