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Leyla Zana sentenced to prison
On 28 July, the 1994 Rafto Prize Laureate and an internationally renowned Kurdish politician and spokesperson, was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. The court claimed that Zana, when speaking at a conference in London last year, stated that the PKK and its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan are “as important for the Kurdish people as the brain and the soul are for a human being.”
Squat is also a home
After 10 years, the European Court for Human Rights rendered the judgment in the case of Rachwalski and Ferenc v. Republic of Poland (application no. 47709/99). The Court held that in the examined case the Police had abused their powers. The decision is likely to force the authorities to consider changing the legal standards of search.
Frontline issues alert on detention of HR defender in the DR Congo
The president of the Katanga branch of the Association Africaine de Défense des Droits de l’Homme – ASADHO (African Association for the Defence of Human Rights), Mr Golden Misabiko, right, was arrested on 24 July 2009 together with ASADHO/Katanga’s vice-president, Mr Timothee Mbuya.
UN Human Rights Committee reviews Azerbaijan during its 96th session in Geneva
The Human Rights Committee considered the third periodic report of Republic of Azerbaijan on 20 and 21 July 2009 and adopted its concluding observations for the country on 30 July 2009.
“A society under control”: a report of FIDH and Civic Assistance Committee
The report highlights numerous cases of human rights violations in the context of anti-terrorism operations as well as illegal acts committed under the veil of anti-terrorism actions.
Blind woman’s victory in court sets precedent for non-discrimination
The friendly settlement reached between Jolanta Kramarz, right, and Carrefour Republic of Poland Limited Company is precedential in the Republic of Poland. The case was carried on by the Stategic Litigation Programme of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
Belarus: Democratic activists’ appeals declined by district court
Appeals submitted by activists of the United Democratic Forces were turned down by the Homiel district court on 22 July. The five men were prosecuted for staging an action on 7 May to commemorate the violent disappearance of General Yury Zakharanka, the former interior minister who was a fierce critic of President Lukashenka.
Landmark conference sets high standards for Somali journalists
-Somali journalists are committed to the mission of journalism and the duty of journalists to be independent, to report the truth and to serve the whole community, it says in the declaration adopted by the National Somali Journalists Conference organised by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) in co-operation with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), held in Nairobi from July 24-26, 2009.
At least 35,000 Congolese civilians displaced by fighting in South Kivu province
An outbreak of fighting in the eastern Congolese province of South Kivu has forced more than 35,000 civilians to flee their homes in the past two weeks. The latest population movement brings the total number of civilians to have been displaced in South Kivu since January as a result of clashes between government forces and Rwandan rebels, and reprisal attacks on civilians, to about 536,000 people.