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Ukrainians are fighting two battles – one against the brutal Russian invasion, and the other to defend the democratic progress the country has made since independence in 1991. Weapons are needed to win the first battle, and for the second, a victory depends on support for local democracy and civil society.

If Ales [Bialiatski] had not received the [Nobel] Peace Prize, images of a Belarusian human rights defender locked in a cage in court would never have made international headlines.

Krigen mot Ukraina har vist at frihet, demokrati og menneskerettigheter ikke kan tas for gitt. Det er verdier som må kjempes for. Menneskerettighetsforkjempere verden over risikerer livet for disse verdiene hver dag. Bare i 2021 ble minst 358 aktivister drept.

The human rights crisis perpetrated by the Russian authorities is not limited to Russian territory. The crisis is spilling beyond Russia’s borders.

On the morning of 7 October 2021, 15 years after Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator in her apartment building where she lived in Moscow, a colleague and I laid flowers on the corner of Drammensveien in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is located.

When US President Joe Biden stood in the East Room of the White House on September 15 flanked by television screens with the images of Australian Prime Minister Morrison and British Prime Minister Johnson, a new geopolitical trend came into stark relief for European policymakers. As many analysts subsequently noted, the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, UK, and Australia underscored the fragility of European security, the need for greater emphasis on building strategic autonomy, and the fact that a strengthened European Union policy towards Russia, its biggest strategic competitor, is vital. Human rights must now play a central role in the design and implementation of an updated EU-Russia Strategic Policy.

“Human rights is going to always be on the table, I told [President Putin]. It’s not about just going after Russia when they violate human rights. It’s about who we are. How could I be the President of the United States of America and not speak out against the violation of human rights?”

More and more journalists and civil society organisations are being sued by powerful businessmen and politicians. We call on the EU to ensure those with a watchdog role are protected from gag lawsuits. This scrutiny is the lifeblood of healthy democracies, writes a group of 99 organisations including Human Rights House Foundation.

For weeks we have been following the protests against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus. Before us, we see a repetition of the large, seemingly leaderless demonstrations in recent years around the world — from Tahrir Square in Cairo, to the democracy riots in Hong Kong and Black Lives Matter in the United States, to the undulating crowd in Minsk.