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On 16 April Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor, a partner organisation of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, was subject to harassment by a large crowd on the eve of a public movie screening. Police authorities did not protect the human rights defenders, and damage was made to the premises of the organisation.

Violations of the presumption of innocence; revealing the identity of underage victims and defendants; copying of positions and narratives of law enforcement agencies; unethical epithets; superficial reporting and lack of professionalism – these are the main findings of the Human Rights Center’s monitoring of the Public Broadcaster’s news program and various print media outlets.

London-based human rights and free speech organisation Article 19 welcomes Kenya’s initiative to foster greater transparency in the financing of election campaigns, and Uganda’s initiative to merge two overlapping communication acts into a single one.

The crackdown on peaceful demonstrators and activists continue in Baku (capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan), on the eve of the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest.

On 19 May activist Andrei Mouchan (right) was severely beaten in Minsk for being out on the street with a white-red-white flag – the Belarusian national symbol regarded as a token of the opposition by the Lukashenka regime.

In the Salian region, southwest of Baku, people are still struggling to get compensation from the government, two years after devastation floods destroyed hundreds of houses.

The most important human rights problems reported during the year were: 1. Abuse of prisoners and detainees by government officials as well as dangerously substandard prison conditions. 2. Shortfalls in the rule of law such as concerns about ensuring the judiciary’s independent and even-handed application of due process protections. 3. Government interference with unions’ fundamental freedom of association in several areas including interference with strikes, arbitrary dismissals, interference with collection of dues, and harassment and intimidation of labor activists.

More and more trees have been cut down in Tbilisi recently. Despite public protest, trees have been cut down on Moscow Avenue, in Kikvidze Square, in Victory Park and finally on Baratashvili Street as well. Sometimes trees are cut down to make way for police stations, but in Victory Park they were removed for the construction of a media library. Tbilisi City Hall claims that it was necessary to cut down the trees because they could not find alternative space for the police station.

The Ukrainian Parliament is working on drafts of two controversial legislative acts. HFHR experts alarm that the new legislation may significantly limit the rights and liberties of individuals under the pretext of protecting the public morals. In particular, it will affect the freedom of expression and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

In response to its motion for access to public information, the Foundation received an internal document of the Ministry of Finance setting out the principles of tax control over excessive income obtained from disclosed sources or income generated from undisclosed sources.

The trial of General Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb army chief accused of orchestrating war crimes and a campaign of genocide, has begun at a special UN court at The Hague in the Netherlands. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia recently made their opening statements against Mladić, almost a year after his arrest in Serbia and subsequent deportation. Mladić is accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including orchestrating the week-long massacre of over 7,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica in 1995 during the Bosnian war.

On the eve of the Eurovision 2012 song contest, which is currently held in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, a number of Azerbaijani NGOs and activists have initiated information campaigns on human rights violations in the country or called upon international journalists to not only cover the song contest but also make press reports about human rights situation in Azerbaijan.