• Áron Demeter, Program Director, Amnesty International, Hungary
• Ionut Sibian, Executive Director, Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, Romania
• Iver Ørstavik, Senior Adviser, Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
Join us on Thursday 18 August at Arendalsuka, Norway for a conversation on the future of democracy in Europe with three leading experts from Poland, Hungary, and Romania.
At the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights House Foundation highlighted the effects of Georgia’s new “foreign agent” law as well as recent legal threats against NGOs and the punitive fining of rights defender Baia Pataraia. HRHF urged repeal of the law and pressed for concrete international support to shield civil society from intensifying state pressure.
At the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights House Foundation condemned state-backed disinformation, legal harassment, and physical attacks targeting journalists and election observers in countries like Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Serbia. Citing the imprisonment of Anar Mammadli and widespread abuse of “national security” laws, HRHF called for clear benchmarks to hold states accountable during election cycles.
We members of the Network of Human Rights Houses stand in solidarity with our imprisoned colleagues in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, as well as all political prisoners in the region.