Latest

When: Monday, 30. April 2012 To: Friday, 4. May 2012 Where: Geneva, Palais Wilson Host: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights OHCHR Contact: Florian Irminger, HRHF’s Head of International Advocacy (

The European Court of Human Rights delivered the judgement in the case of Kaperzyński versus Poland. The case concerned a conviction for the failure to publish a correction to a press article. The Court held unanimously that the criminal liability for the failure to publish a correction violated the freedom of speech.

The Polish Council for Foreigners decided to expel a homosexual from Uganda to his home country. The Council upheld a decision of the Head of the Office for Foreigners who refused to grant the foreigner a refugee status or other type of protection. The Ugandan came to Poland in August 2009 and applied for a refugee status. He claimed that in his country of origin he had been persecuted because of his sexual orientation

Lukpan Akhmedyarov, Uralskaya nedelya journalist, was attacked by a group of three men on the night of 19-20 April near the porch of his house. Akhmedyarov is known for his criticism of the government and his participation in protests.

The World Bank’s policies for land privatisation and concentration have paved the way for corporations from Wall Street to Singapore to take over 80 million hectares of land from rural communities across the world in the past few years, says farmers’ movement and its international allies in a collective statement released at the opening of the World Bank’s Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington, D.C.

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.

At least 13 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus, two weeks after the release of the former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikau.

Between responsibility and reality: How can we guarantee free expression online? As the internet becomes a central feature of everyday life, opinion is still divided on how to make it work for the common good.

Supreme Court decided that hearings in criminal cases should be held in open court. This resolution, adopted in March by a seven-judge panel of the Court, resolved a long-lasting legal dispute concerning the possibility of the members of the public to attend criminal trials.

As a party invited to the public consultations, the HFHR presented before the Sejm and Senate committees a critical review of the draft amendment to the provisions on correction and response in the Press Act. The Foundation prepared a long list of reservations concerning the draft prepared by the Sejm and Senate committees.

Alena Lebiadzinskaya (right), a last year’s Minsk metro blast survivor, says she was abducted by two unidentified men in plain clothes, who injured her and took her to the police for holding up a poster reading “The government refused to help”.