Latest

On 20 April it is 6 months since our colleague, a journalist on the independent newspaper Salidarnasts, a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Vieranika Charkasava was murdered. On the eve of the occasion the Belarusian Association of Journalists staged a press-briefing attended by Vieranika’s family and colleagues. (26-APR-2005)

The Belarusian authorities do not want to see Adrian Severin in Minsk, said Foreign Minister of Republic of Belarus Siarhei Martynau on 18 April. According to Mr. Martynau, what Mr. Severin presented at the session of the Human Rights Committee was a compilation from the US State Department report rather than his own review. (26-APR-2005)

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina has on several occasions addressed the public and warned, the domestic institutions particularly, of the unreasonable decision to privatize the Ljubija/Omarska Coal Mine before the investigating bodies have completed their job concerning the circumstantial evidence indicating that on the location of the coal mine there are bodily remnants of people who had been taken captive during the war. (26-APR-05)
 

The six citizens known as the “Algerian Group”, who were extradited by the Bosnian authorities to the United States of America, have been detained in the Guantanamo base for over three years. Unfortunately, the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina have not, in the past three years, taken relevant steps, to help the six detainees, which include measures for their return to Bosnia and Herzegovina. (26-APR-05)
 

The massacres in Srebrenica constitute the first genocide in Europe to be recognised by an international legal mechanism since World War II. On 21 April, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee hosted a seminar on Srebrenica at the Norwegian Human Rights House. (26-APR-05)
 
 

The UN Commission on human rights “calls upon all States to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of human rights defenders, and to ensure and maintain an environment conducive to the work of human rights defenders” in a resolution adopted during its last session in April 2005.
 

The Human Rights House Foundation welcomes the UN Commission of Human Rights’ adoption of the basic principles and guidelines on the right to a remedy and reparation for victims of gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law. (25-APR-05)
 

Throughout April, Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey?s most internationally acclaimed authors, has suffered threats from extremists calling for his books to be seized from public libraries and, in some cases, burned. At the same time, Adolf Hitler?s ?Mein Kampf? is once again a best-seller in the Republic of Turkey. From International PEN, HRH has received the following appeal on Pamuk?s behalf. (25-APR-05)
 

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), expresses its deepest concern about recent death threats against four executives of the Human Rights Association in the Republic of Turkey (Insan Haklari Dernegi – IHD).(25-APR-05)