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14 July 2023 marks two years since human rights defender Ales Bialiatski was detained in Belarus alongside his Viasna colleagues Valiantsin Stefanovich and Uladzimir Labkovich. HRHF spoke to Bialiatski’s wife Natalia Pinchuk ahead of the day.

In June 2023, Human Rights House Foundation spoke to prominent human rights lawyer and former political prisoner Intigam Aliyev. We discussed human rights, his experience as a political prisoner, and the situation for his imprisoned colleagues in Belarus.

In June 2023, Human Rights House Foundation spoke to Anar Mammadli, a prominent Azerbaijani human rights defender, former political prisoner, and the founder of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS). We discussed human rights, his experience as a political prisoner, and the situation for his imprisoned colleagues in Belarus.

In October 2022, human rights defender Olena Vinsent, fled increasing danger in occupied Crimea with her mother, their three cats and their dog, driving through Russia to reach safety in Georgia. Today she lives and carries out human rights work in Batumi and is still getting used to feeling safe.

“We work with those who provide support to others and we call them ‘helpers’.” As a result of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country’s population has a greater need for support from human rights defenders, social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists, etc. Wika Solonitsyna (top photo), Programme Coordinator and Co-founder of AHALAR (member organisation of Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv), sheds light on how her organisation provides valuable assistance to helpers in Ukraine.

On 10 March 2023, the Georgian Parliament voted down the so-called “foreign agent” and “foreign influence” bills following mass protests in the country. In the weeks following, Human Rights House Foundation spoke to Human Rights House Tbilisi’s Natia Tavberidze discussing next steps for civil society as well as support that Georgian civil society needs now from international colleagues.

Dzmitry Kubarau is UI/UX designer from Minsk. Known as ‘Dima’ to his friends, he likes tattoos, fashion, and chess. Dzmitry was accused of “calling people to actively participate in mass riots, organising them himself and participating in them” from 9 to 12 August 2020. He was detained on 11 August 2020 and taken to the KGB pre-trial detention centre. That same night, he signed a confession while in the hands of the KGB. At trial, Dzmitry pleaded not guilty and reported the torture that led to his ‘confession.’ On 24 March 2021 he was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony under part 1 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code (“Organisation of riots”).

Following the launch of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, civic activist Artem Kostyuchenko and his family were forced to flee the Kherson region and relocate to Lviv. From there he continues his work and hopes to soon return to his home. This is article was written by Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv.

Artsiom Mitsuk was part of a Telegram group chat which included a number of pseudonymous members. On 29 September, some of the members agreed to meet in person. Artsiom arrived late and saw a number of representatives of law enforcement agencies but as he was sure he had not broken any laws, he checked in with the group chat to find out what was happening. However, on the group chat, Artsiom noticed a representative of state authorities was sending messages to the other users. Soon after that Artsiom was arrested.