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Met with those fighting for human rights in Azerbaijan. Loreen did see an Azerbaijan far beyond the glittery front.

Mehman Aliyev, director of Turan news agency, received the Human Rights House Network Award 2012.

In May 2012 on the HFHR’s premises the meeting was hosted with Liubov Kovalyova, mother of Vladislav Kovalyov, a man sentenced to death for his alleged complicity in carrying out a bomb attack at a Minsk metro station on 11 April 2011. The sister of the executed Belarusian also took part in the meeting. Valdislav Kovalyov’s mother and sister still don’t know when the execution was carried out and where their son and brother was buried. Under the Belarusian law such information is not to be revealed.

The Foundation appealed to the Mayor of Śródmieście District in respect of the recent decision of the Board of Śródmieście District, Warsaw made during the latest edition of the “Premises for Culture” initiative. Fourteen applications were submitted in response to the lease offer for the premises situated at Grzybowski Square in Warsaw. Only four organisations satisfied formal requirements: Good Karma Association, Shalom Foundation, Stanisław Brzozowski Association and Adam Smith Center.

Leyla Zana, the 1994 Rafto Prize Laureate, well-known Kurdish politician and respected human rights defender of Kurds in Turkey, was recently sentenced to ten years in prison by the 5th High Criminal Court.

On 16 April Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor, a partner organisation of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, was subject to harassment by a large crowd on the eve of a public movie screening. Police authorities did not protect the human rights defenders, and damage was made to the premises of the organisation.

Violations of the presumption of innocence; revealing the identity of underage victims and defendants; copying of positions and narratives of law enforcement agencies; unethical epithets; superficial reporting and lack of professionalism – these are the main findings of the Human Rights Center’s monitoring of the Public Broadcaster’s news program and various print media outlets.

London-based human rights and free speech organisation Article 19 welcomes Kenya’s initiative to foster greater transparency in the financing of election campaigns, and Uganda’s initiative to merge two overlapping communication acts into a single one.

The crackdown on peaceful demonstrators and activists continue in Baku (capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan), on the eve of the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest.