HRHF continued its close cooperation with partners from the Network of Human Rights Houses and beyond, highlighting key human rights challenges across the OSCE region and ensuring that threats to HRDs, as well as democratic backsliding in Georgia and Serbia is not treated as an abstract concern, but as a matter that must be addressed with concrete follow-up from participating states.

Dave Elseroad, Head of Advocacy

Participating States must protect human rights defenders engaging with the OSCE

In a statement delivered during the session “Safeguarding Democracies: Democratic Lawmaking and the Role of International Actors”, HRHF warned that the continued detention of prominent Azerbaijani human rights defender Anar Mammadli reflects a wider pattern of reprisals against civic actors across the OSCE region. HRHF urged participating States to make every effort to protect human rights defenders engaging with the OSCE and reiterated our recommendations for doing so.

Georgia’s Human Rights Crisis – Next Steps from the Moscow Mechanism

On 17 March, HRHF and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee organised a side event that brought together the Moscow Mechanism rapporteur and Georgian civil society representatives to examine the report’s findings and discuss next steps for participating States. 

Threats to Judicial Independence, Democratic Law-Making and Democratic Resilience in Serbia 

On 17 March, HRHF facilitated a side event alongside YUCOM and Human Rights House Belgrade, and Human Rights House Foundation on the human rights situation in Serbia following a year of large-scale student and civic protests.