Dr Roddy Evans writes from Northern Ireland about the publication of a new official report into the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ on 30 January 1972 when British troops killed 14 civilians in Derry/Londonderry. On 15 June when the report was published, Prime Minister David Cameron, apologized in the House of Commons to the bereaved families on behalf of his Government.

On November 17, the United States Institute of Peace hosted a screening of "Apology," a short film that captured the historic apology of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to Australia's indigenous peoples. His remarks on February 13th, 2008 were addressed specifically to members of the "Stolen Generations" for the wrongs committed against them by the Australian government.

At the initiative of members of the IofC team in Lebanon, a letter was recently published in the newspaper Al-Safir. It was in response to the ‘Palestinian Declaration for Lebanon’ made on the initiative of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and issued by Abbas Zaki, the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon on 7 January 2008.

When Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stood up in Parliament three months ago to face up to the shameful past policies towards Indigenous Australians and to offer a formal apology, John Bond knew more than most about the decade-long journey of campaigning it had taken to get there. Bond was a guest-speaker at the London centre of Initiatives of Change on 13 May.

National Sorry Day – Australia
From Saying Sorry to a Journey of Healing

Seldom can the uttering of one word have caused such joy across a nation.

Seldom can the uttering of one word have caused such joy across a nation.

“I had a great distrust of Indian businessmen until I met a delegation which had come to Lahore.”

Though apologies have an important place in healing national and international relations, it is often difficult to know when they are appropriate.