Kate Allen (Amnesty International)

Allen speaks in March 2019

After studying for a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Brasenose College, University of Oxford, Allen was a policy officer at the Greater London Council, and then Haringey London Borough Council. She was a member of Camden Council[3] during the 1980s where she set up the Women’s Committee.[4]

Allen then moved to the Refugee Council, where she headed the UK emergency evacuation programmes for Bosnia and Kosovo, and chaired the Asylum Rights Campaign during the passage of new asylum and immigration legislation. In 1998/99 she was seconded to the Home Office, where she worked on the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act.[1]

In 2000, Allen was appointed the UK Director of Amnesty International, the third-largest Amnesty section worldwide with more than a quarter of a million supporters;[1] Allen undertook a major restructure, and established the Human Rights Action Centre in Shoreditch. Having appeared on BBC’s Question Time, in May 2006 she wrote a two-page article in The Observer newspaper, which launched an international campaign on Internet censorship and repression.

"While the internet has brought freedom of information to millions, for some it has led to imprisonment by a government seeking to curtail that freedom. They have closed or censored websites and blogs; created firewalls to prevent access to information; and restricted and filtered search engines to keep information from their citizens." (Kate Allen writing in the above article)[5]

For 20 years she was the partner of Ken Livingstone, former leader of the Greater London Council, then Member of Parliament, and later the first Mayor of London. The couple's relationship ended in 2001.[3]

• Video interview with Kate Allen (The Alligator Online)
• Transcript of an interview with Kate Allen (The Student Journals)