Education
Brasenose College; University of Oxford.
Director of Amnesty International
Brasenose College; University of Oxford.
After studying for a Bachelor(Honours) 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. Allen then moved to the Refugee Council, where she headed the United Kingdom 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 Acting.
In 1992 she tried to gain the Labour nomination to stand for the seat of Coventry North East at that year"s General Election, however she came fourth in the selection process.
In 2000, Allen was appointed the United Kingdom Director of Amnesty International, the third largest Amnesty section worldwide with more than a quarter of a million supporters. Allen undertook a major restructure, and established the Human Rights Action Centre in Shoreditch.
Having appeared on British Broadcasting Corporation’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).
She was a member of Camden Council during the 1980s where she set up the Women's Committee.
