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Danila Hancharou is a lighting designer who had previously been employed at the New Drama Theater in Minsk. On 15 March, his apartment was searched, and he was detained for having held a one-person picket. Having been sentenced to 15 days in prison, he was due to be released on 30 March. But on 26 March, he was taken for interrogation and charged with the “organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order.” He was subsequently transferred to a pre-trial detention centre. On 9 July 2021, he was put on trial and sentenced to two years in prison. He remains imprisoned in “correctional facility” #17 (IK-17) in Shklow in the Mogliev region of Belarus.

Ahead of the 23rd summit between the European Union and Ukraine, Human Rights House Foundation, with its partners Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv and Human Rights House Crimea urge the EU to raise with Ukraine issues concerning freedom of expression, assembly, association and human rights defenders.

Ksenia Syramalot is a 21-year-old student at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Belarusian State University. She was the spokesperson for the Belarusian Students’ Association and a volunteer at the Human Rights Center “Viasna”. On 23 November 2020, she was detained for “organising or participating in group actions that gravely breach public order” under Art. 342 part 1 of the Criminal Code. Her apartment was searched, and she was held in the KGB pre-trial prison. On 16 July 2021, she was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in a case known as “the student case”, which involved 12 defendants.

Respekten for og nasjonal etterlevelse av menneskerettighetene og de internasjonale mekanismene som skal ivareta dem er blitt svekket de siste ti-årene. Les HRHFs anbefalinger til Norges nye regjeringsplattform.

On 5 October 2021, Human Rights House Foundation delivered a statement at the 48th session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in occupied Crimea and mainland Ukraine

When US President Joe Biden stood in the East Room of the White House on September 15 flanked by television screens with the images of Australian Prime Minister Morrison and British Prime Minister Johnson, a new geopolitical trend came into stark relief for European policymakers. As many analysts subsequently noted, the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, UK, and Australia underscored the fragility of European security, the need for greater emphasis on building strategic autonomy, and the fact that a strengthened European Union policy towards Russia, its biggest strategic competitor, is vital. Human rights must now play a central role in the design and implementation of an updated EU-Russia Strategic Policy.

Watch the full recording of the webinar “Censoring Civil Society: The impact of restrictive civil society legislation on engagement with the UN”, hosted on the sidelines of the 48th session of the Human Rights Council on 30 September 2021.

Elena Talkacheva is a journalist and was a business reporter for the independent news website, Tut.by. She was detained alongside 14 of her colleagues on 18 May 2021 in the framework of a criminal case initiated against Tut.by for tax evasion.

Levon Khalatrian worked as a bar manager and was a volunteer with [opposition politician] Viktar Babaryka’s campaign in the lead-up to the presidential election on 9 August 2020. He was detained two days after the election, on 11 August 2020, and was reported to have been badly beaten at the time. He remained in pre-trial detention for 6 months.