ACTIVISTS UNDER ATTACK

An international conference on the protection of human rights defenders will be arranged by the Human Rights House Network on 13-14 October 2004. The title of the conference is “Activists under Attack. Defending the Right to be a Human Rights Defender”.

The focus of the conference will be the deteriorating security and working conditions of human rights defenders. The Human RIghts House Network wants to highlight that this tendency can be traced not only in an increase in the number of for instance incidents of harassment, threats, torture or unlawful arrests, but also in more subtle ways, such as a step-by-step undermining of funding opportunities, increasingly complex regulations on registration and re-registration or other kinds of suffocating bureaucracy.

Representatives of governments, grass-root organisations and international experts will participate at the conference. The UN Secretary General´s special representative for human rights defenders, has identified a growing universal tendency to clamp down on independent human rights organisations and individual activists alike.

The conference will take place at the new Human Rights House in Tordenskioldsgate 6b, Oslo, Norway. Program will follow shortly.

Useful links and documents:

· UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders

· Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

· Reports of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

· UN resolutions on human rights defenders
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

· Guidelines for the submission of allegations to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

· The Neglected Right: Freedom of Association in International Human Rights Law (December 1997)
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR)

· Front Line – The International Foundation for the Protection of Human
Rights Defenders

· Compilation of International and Regional Instruments for the Protection of  Human Rights Defenders
Human Rights Defenders Office (HRDO)

· UN human rights calendar. Meetings in 2004

· International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
A federation of 116 Human Rights organisations in nearly 100 countries.

· Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Created by World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)