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Yelena Tregubova (right), a Russian journalist, who published a critical book about Vladimir Putin and his environment, fot a political asylum in Great Britain. She escaped the Russian Federation after the bomb exploded outside her apartment. Returning home would have been a mortal danger. A few years later, in similar circumstances, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered. (17-APR-08)
 

ARTICLE 19 and the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC) are among those condemning the murder of two community journalists in Mexico on 7 April. Teresa Bautisto Merion and Felicitas Martinez Sanchez are the latest victims of an ongoing campaign against journalists in the state of Oaxaca. (17-APR-08)

This was the question left hanging in the air by Kesang Takla, right, Tibet’s Minister for International Relations, in her press conference at the Human Rights House in Oslo today. Takla further emphasized that the official Tibetan position is not that the Olympics should not have been held in the People´s Republic of China, or that the rest of the world ought to boycott the forthcoming Summer Games, but that each participating individual and nation should listen to their conscience and act accordingly. (16-APR-08)
 

The Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi says that she has received numerous death threats recently. The threats have been presented in the form of notes on the door to the building where she has her office. One of the notes simply states that she will soon die. -The threats against me and my family have become more serious, warns Ebadi. (15-APR-08)
 

OSCE Representative on Media Freedom Miklos Haraszti is on his visit in Baku. He presented the “Media Self-Regulation Guidebook” in the International Press Center and said that it is the first time such a book has been published and it is only being presented in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (13-APR-08)
           

Imprisoned Editor-in-Chief of “Realny Azerbaijan” and “Gundalik Azerbayjan” newspapers Eynulla Fatullayev (right) has started a hunger-strike in Prison #12. Eynulla appealed to the prison’s leadership in the written form, informing them about the hunger-strike. Later over 40 journalists, political activists and political prisoners in total joined the hunger-strike. (10-APR-08)
 

On 3 April in the Baku office of the Council of Europe, the Council of Europe Cabinet of Ministers “AGO” Monitoring Groups discussed the freedom of expression situation in the Republic of Azerbaijan with leaders from media institutions and journalism organizations, functioning in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (05-APR-08)
   

On 28 March the Human Rights Department of the Institute of Peace and Democracy released a statement on the situation of political prisoners. The statement, signed by the director of the IPD Leyla Yunus (right), suggests a number of mechanisms to solve the problem with political prisoners, such as repeated courts, amnesty on political articles, adoption of the law about defamation, demonstration, etc. (30-MAR-08)
   

Leyla Zana, a well know political spokesperson for the Kurds in the Republic of Turkey and the 1994 Rafto Prize Laureate has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by a Turkish Court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The court´s judgment said she violated the Anti-Terrorism Law after a speech she held at a Kurdish Newroz Festival in 2007. (12-APR-08)