Britain/Germany WORKER PRIESTS TODAY LATEST
WHY I BECAME A GERMAN AFTER BREXIT
Guardian article from 11 January 2017 on the steps it takes to become German and how I felt about it.
Picture is outside Schoeneberg town hall, Berlin
Priests on the Payroll
Church Times feature on priests in the UK who choose manual or service sector jobs, such as hairdresser, shop worker, carer and cafe worker, and why they do it
19 February Amazon, the giant logistics company, likes to appear diverse and open to the world. But on closer inspection, the company is primarily taking advantage of the precarious situation of foreign employees. Feature in a German magazine
12 February A blog post on the 5th anniversary of my father’s death, reflecting on the role of worker priests
29 January 2024 Comment article in die tageszeitung, a Germany daily newspaper telling the story of what happened when Germany deported a Tajik opposition activist to Tajikistan
25 July This podcast interview focuses on my job at Human Rights Watch - what its like to work for a human rights organisation, how staff handle difficult situations doing research on rights abuses and what’s inspiring about my team and the work itself. You can listen here
24 February 2023 On the first anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, my essay charting human rights violations in Ukraine and calling for perpetrators to be held to account
28 November Listen in to the Berlin-based podcast (in English) ‘For a Living’ where I’m interviewed about the role of worker priests in society. Here
2 April Forty years on from the Falklands war, a distant connection I recently discovered to this forgotten British war makes me reflect on the importance of remembering those killed in battle. Here
25 February 2022 Podcast: Worker Priessts offer a “Refreshing Approach to Faith”. Listen as I chat with the Church Times about worker priests currently in precarious jobs in the UK. Here
27 October How worker priests in Germany, Netherlands and France experience their precarious work, in their own words. Here
8 May The Berlin remembrance initiative Denk mal am Ort has published a video telling the story of how the former resident of my Berlin apartment returned home 79 years after being forced to flee the Nazis. The full story is here
4 May I’ve been working for Human Rights Watch for 10 years this month. Here’s a twitter thread reflecting on the great work by my Europe & Central Asia team and on #WhatIdoAtWork
1 April The Oxford Mail has published my blogpost linking recent anti-racism protests in Oxford to those in the early 1960’s involving my father Rev Tony Williamson.
22 January 2021 Feature in Church Times on French worker priests who made a secret mission to work as labourers, undercover in Nazi Germany
13 November News story in Church Times on why Hugh Lee, an Oxford worker priest is urging the Church of England to fully recognise the role of ministers in secular employment
2 July Reflections in Publik Forum on marking time during the lockdown
26 June Essay in Church Times on international responses to the Covid19 pandemic
8 May On 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, a blog post paying tribute to Henri Perrin, a remarkable French worker priest who went on a secret mission in Nazi Germany
1 May New blog post: review of an article on the recent history of the European worker priest movement
24 April Letter in the Church Times: the example of my local church in Berlin shows how places of worship can stay open during the covid 19 pandemic
26 March A HRW dispatch on how a soup kitchen for homeless people in Berlin, where I volunteer, is helping support those living on the streets in the coronavirus crisis
12 February New on the blog: a speech in 1961 by my father Canon Tony Williamson, on his life as a car factory labourer and worker priest
15 January Priest in Overalls: why a worker priest may be the guy checking your hire car at Duesseldorf airport More
6 January 2020 My new blog #PriestsInPrecariousWork & its first post, on my visit to the Documentation Centre on Nazi Forced Labour in Berlin
4 November 2019 Why the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago is worth celebrating More
1 July 2019 Tony Williamson’s life as a trade unionist was a core part of his worker priest role More
26 June 2019 I spent time in a Turkish courtroom, observing the trial of 16 civil society and cultural figures; here are my impressions HRW
21 January 2019 My comment piece in Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel on the wider lessons of recent reforms in Uzbekistan HRW
6 June 2018 My testimony in German parliament on human rights and Russia’s staging of the 2018 soccer World Cup HRW
8 March 2018 German judge takes stand against xenophobic violence HRW
16 February 2018 Time is ripe for broader reform in Uzbekistan My letter to the Financial Times
22 January 2018: Germany's Bundestag sends an important signal on fighting corruption in the Council of Europe HRW
18 January 2018: My piece with my HRW colleague Mihra Rittmann on why the US needs to care about human rights in Kazakhstan
10 Nov 2017: #MeToo: comment piece in die taz on how allegations of sexual harassment swept through British politics