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Human Rights House Network and South Caucasus Network of Human Rights Defenders members and partners are concerned about the latest attacks against human rights organisations in Armenia. We urge the authorities of the Republic of Armenia to ensure the security of human rights defenders in their work.

More than 40 partner organizations of Human Rights House Network and South Caucasus Network of human rights defenders call for the immediate and unconditional release and full rehabilitation of Azerbaijani activist Ogtay Gulaliyev.

Together with several international human rights organisations, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee strongly condemns the brutal attack on the Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov and four other journalists on 18 April 2012. In a letter adressed to President Ilham Aliyev the NHC demands that the Azerbaijani authorities launch an immediate, independent and transparent investigation into these brutal attacks. Read the letter in full below.

Arbitrary detention is used in Belarus against political opponents and persons exercising their freedoms of conscience, opinion and expression. The use of arbitrary detention as a tool of systematic repression of critical voices constitutes a serious violation of human rights as the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention underlines. We urge the authorities of the Republic of Belarus to release all political prisoners and to compensate them for the harm suffered.

On 18 April 2012 in Baku, security guards attacked a prominent Azerbaijani journalist, Idrak Abbasov. This violent assault constitutes another case out of a long list of journalists harassed and attacked in Azerbaijan. The authorities of Azerbaijan bear the international responsibility to fully guarantee and promote the right to freedom of expression, as well as to carry out a prompt and impartial investigation and bring those responsible for these hideous crimes to justice in fair and open trial.

Azerbaijani and international NGOs condemn the blackmail and continued harassment of one of the independent investigative journalists working in the Republic of Azerbaijan, Khadija Ismayilova. The most recent episode in the harassment campaign involves a one minute film of an intimate nature being posted on the internet on Wednesday 14 March 14.

Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Georgian National Platform Appeals to the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark and Minister for European Affairs, Nicolai Wammen, Denmark

On February 28, 2012, during his annual speech in Parliament, President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili referred to a student, Mikheil Aleksidze, who has been expelled from the public school # 53 as a hooligan. He said Aleksidze was expelled because of his disobedience to the school director. Saakashvili said we live in different time and criminal mentality no longer works in public schools.

44 non-governmental organisations, including partners and members of the Human Rights House Network, urge the Human Rights Council to raise concern relating to fundamental freedoms in Azerbaijan.