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The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has adopted the concluding remarks of the 4th periodic report of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Having welcomed dialogue between NGOs and the official delegation, the Committee identified 27 ´negative´ and only 5 ´positive´ areas in the field of social and economic rights in the Russian Federation. (06-DEC-03)
 

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has recognized the poor living conditions in the Chechen Republic as its biggest concern in all of the Russian Federation. In its concluding remarks on Russia´s 4th periodic report on the implementation of the Committee´s International Covenant, the Russian State is urged to allocate sufficient funds to reinstate basic services, including health and educational infrastructure, in the Chechen Republic. (06-DEC-03)
 

HRH has received fresh photographic evidence that participants in the demonstrations following the rigged mid-October elections in Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy handed police treatment. The three pictures show wounds from what looks like severe beatings to the victims´ head, back and legs. To view the photographs, click the headline above. (8-DEC-03)
  

The programme for the Republic of Azerbaijan seminar (see the 4th of December article below), to take place in Oslo this coming Friday, is ready and can be viewed in English below. Keynote speakers include the Norwegian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Traavik, the Azerbaijani human rights activists Leyla Yunus and Mehman Aliyev and Senior Researcher at ECON Leiv Lunde. (8-DEC-03)
      

While in Oslo this week to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi will launch her book ´Democracy, Human Rights and Islam in Modern Islamic Republic of Iran. Psychological, Social and Cultural Perspectives´. The book, a critical analysis of contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran focussing on family issues, education and the economy, has been written and edited in co-operation with the Rafto Foundation, one of the organisations at the Human Rights House in Bergen. (8-DEC-03)
     

One of the six organisations in the Human Rights House in Sarajevo, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Hercegovina (HCHR BH), has organised its ninth intensive course in human rights for youth in Sarajevo. The course had 18 participants, all young students from the whole of Bosnia and Hercegovina.(05-DEC-03)
 

A rigged trial has sentenced Ilgar Ibragimoglu (see story below, 2-DEC-03) to three months´ imprisonment, says Forum 18. Authorities are investigating him for organising the post-election demonstrations, although the court was “given proof that Ibragimoglu had not taken part in any public disorder and clashes with the police,”a spokesman of DEVAMM says. (4-DEC-03)
 

The invitation to the Oslo seminar on the recent decline in human rights standards in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the international community´s chances of reversing the accelerating growth in democratic defecit was released last night. Click the headline, above, and read the full invitation, in Norwegian. (4-DEC-03)
 

Russian NGOs do not agree with the president Putin´s decision to stop the “hysteria about YUKOS”, the oil giant. Its former leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky is still in prison and accused in several crimes. Human rights activists deeply concerned with the Russian state power turning back to repressive methods of ruling the country. Some even call Khodorkovsky´s arrest the “start of the fight with civil society” in the Russian Federation. (03-DEC-03)