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Human rights activists in Western Sahara have launched a campaign to pursue Moroccan authorities to hand back Sidi Mohammed Daddach, which is the 2002 Rafto laureate, his passport. The campaign has been initiated be a newly established human rights organisation in Western Sahara. The organisation is led by a former prisoner of conscious, Ali Salem Tamek, whom was handed back his passport two weeks ago after Saharawien demonstration in the Southern Moroccan city of Assa. (21-NOV-2004)
 

November 7th the 2004 Rafto laureate, Rebiya Kadeer, was celebrated with a ceremony to her honour at ‘Den Nationale Scene’ in Bergen. The ceremony was accompanied by artistic performances, through words, music and dance, and they were all performed as a tribute to Kadeer’s struggle for the Uyghurs’ basic human rights in the North-western province of the People´s Republic of China, Xinjiang. The peak of the ceremony was the moment when Kadeers daughter Akida expressed gratitude on behalf of her mother on a telephone line from the USA. (21-NOV-2004)

The conference on “The EU, Republic of Turkey and the Kurds”, which is being held on 22 – 23 November 2004 in the European Parliament, have been organized and sponsored by the Rafto Foundation, in co-operation with the Kurdish Human Rights Project and Medico International. Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu from South-Africa is the Patron of the Conference. The topics are “Human Rights Violations and Democratisation in Turkey” (session I), “Turkey’s European and International Obligations” (session II) and “Securing Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Turkey” (session III).
(21-NOV-2004)

November 7th the 2004 Rafto laureate, Rebiya Kadeer, was celebrated with a ceremony to her honour at ‘Den Nationale Scene’ in Bergen. The ceremony was accompanied by artistic performances, speeches, music and dance, as a tribute to Kadeer’s struggle for the Uyghurs’ basic human rights in the North-western province of the People´s Republic of China, Xinjiang. The peak of the ceremony was the moment when Kadeer´s daughter Akida expressed gratitude on behalf of her mother on a telephone line from the USA. (21-NOV-2004)
 
 

Human rights activists in Western Sahara have launched a campaign to pursue Moroccan authorities to hand back Sidi Mohammed Daddach, which is the 2002 Rafto laureate, his passport. The campaign has been initiated be a newly established human rights organisation in Western Sahara.  (21-NOV-2004)

The Council of Europe has not got any positive impact on the human rights situation in the Republic of Armenia Mikael Danielyan, the leader of the Armenian Helsinki Association for Human Rights said at a conference organised by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and NUPI, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs 17th of November. (22-NOV-04)

On 14 October, after waiting nearly 10 years, Leyla Zana was able to personally collect the 1995 European Parliament´s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. (19-NOV-04)
 

According to a report published by “The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers” this week, as many as 14,000 child soldiers had been recruited by paramilitaries and armed opposition groups in Colombia. Women and girls constituted up to half of all recruits to armed opposition groups. (18-NOV-04)
 

(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has condemned the Azerbaijani authorities´ freezing of the assets of “Yeni Musavat”, the country´s main opposition daily, on 16 November 2004. The move has forced the paper to cease publishing. The decision was taken on the grounds that the newspaper failed to pay fines and damages totalling some 125,000 euros.   (18 NOV 2004)