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On February 28, 2011 the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights sent a letter addressed to the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk concerning the recent news about the pressures on the Polish Press Agency (PAP). This is a reaction to the situation described by a polish journalist Tomasz Machała the previous day. The Foundation appealed to stop the pressuring of the public media.

Экс-кандыдат ў Прэзідэнты Рэспублікі Беларусь Алесь Міхалевіч распавёў пра жорсткія катаванні, якім ён падвяргаўся ў СІЗА КДБ. Заява Міхалевіча з падрабязным апісаннем катаванняў ужо накіраваная спецдакладчыку ААН па праблеме катаванняў, а РПГА “Беларускі Хельсінкскі Камітэт” накіраваў зварот у Генпракуратуру.

To be a journalist in Uganda means to be a representative of a dangerous profession. In February 2011 one journalist was shot by soldiers and six were attacked by mob. All of them suffered while covering elections in the country. Violence is being investigated.

Human rights coordinator at the Conservative Party Lasha Chkhartishvili connects the detention of drivers with the intimidation policy of the government. “It is done to prevent future strikes and protest rallies of drivers and other social groups,” said Chkhartishvili.

The Kazakh authorities have failed to fulfill their pledges to improve the legal framework for media and protect the right to freedom of expression as made prior and during its chairmanship of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), says Article’s 19 statement. It highlights the shortcomings of the recent amendments to the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan related to defamation and insult.

English PEN is calling on our members to join a worldwide reading campaign for our Honorary Member imprisoned writer and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. The aim of the campaign, organised by the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, is to encourage as many of Liu’s supporters around the world to stage a reading of Liu Xiaobo’s poem ‘You Wait for me with Dust’ on 20 March 2011.

To: Sunday, 20. March 2011 Where: worldwide Host: Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin

The 11th annual Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards honour those who, often at great personal risk, have given voice to issues and stories from around the globe that would otherwise have passed unnoticed.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights appealed to the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament in reference to resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe regarding the implementation of judgments of the ECHR. According to the resolution, Poland is one of the countries having serious structural problems in an implementation of ECHR judgments.

UK’s freedom of expression organizations are concerned about the practice of intimidating and silencing journalists and authors from other countries under British libel law. Such practice, according to Article 19, has earned the UK a reputation for being the “Libel Capital of the World.” Fortunately, this week the High Court decided to dismiss the defamation claim brought by the Ukrainian businessman against the Kyiv Post.

The lawyers of political prisoners are being persecuted in Belarus. Four lawyers’ licences were cancelled; the formal reason was their refusal to defend the clients. In reality the lawyers had been forced to deny their assistance to the political prisoners, or else the KGB had threatened to withdraw their law licences. Find more outrageous facts of pressure on the Belarusian Bar in a letter of the human rights defenders to the respective UN Special Rapporteur.

In January of 2011, the Georgian Ministry of Interior completed the eviction process of IDPs from temporary settlement locations in Tbilisi. The process reflects an effort to tackle a massive displacement problem as a result of the conflicts in the early 1990s in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Georgia-Russia war in 2008. So far around five thousand IDPs have been evicted from Tbilisi, most of them left without shelters and others resettled in the regions of Georgia.