With Borgen, right, himself present, the premiere of his latest film ‘The Prisoner from Azerbaijan’ took place in the shared auditorium of the Norwegian and Finnish embassies to Lithuania. Norwegian Ambassador Steinar Gil, formerly the Ambassador to Azerbaijan, welcomed everyone, including Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Lithuania. The audience was moved by the story of journalist and editor-in-chief of the Baku-based newspaper Azadliq, Eynulla Fatullayev, right, currently serving a long prison term for his independent journalism. His truth-seeking articles, not the least about the family dynasty of successive presidents Haydar and Ilham Aliyev, have brought Fatullayev to court 34 times so far. In numerous articles, he has also raised the murder case of fellow journalist Elmar Huseynov, shot dead in front of his own home in 2005. His killers remain at large.

Present at the screening were also Fatullayev’s lawyer Rashid Hajili, Borgen’s assistant and longstanding associate of HRHN Vugar Gojayev, and last year’s Rafto Laureate Malahat Nasibova, yet another Azeri journalist whose basic professional rights have been violated by Azeri authorities on numerous occations. While Borgen shared details about the making of the movie, Gojayev read a greeting from Fatullayev, written in his prison cell only a few days ago. Darashkevich’s pictures were a stark reminder of how Belarus’s authoritarian regime affects the everyday life of all Belarusians. With a good blend of shots from ‘innocent’ situations in ordinary people’s lives, and documentation of highly politically charged situations in which basic human rights are brutally violated, the message came across quite clearly, that Belarus, often dubbed ‘the last dictatorship in Europe,’ is a thoroughly unfree society.

Representing 17 different countries, the approximately 50 delegates to HRHN’s annual meeting were also reminded of the highlights of HRHN’s activities in different regions. Through illustrated presentations by Executive Director Maria Dahle, head of the Human Rights House Foundation’s Geneva office Florian Irminger, and Project Manager Liudmila Ulyashyna, the meeting was particularly informed about the network’s rapidly increasing advocacy activities, and the ongoing project ‘International Law in Advocacy’. 

Through testimonies from three of Belarus’s leading human rights defenders, the meeting also learnt the grim realities of the human rights situation in Belarus. In a press conference hosted at the Belarusian human rights house in exile in Vilnius, the media was given a statement, approved by the meeting, addressing the same situation, and providing numerous concrete recommendations to Belarusian authorities on how to improve its human rights record. Particular attention was paid to the harsh restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and on the right to be a human rights defender.

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