Latest

B.a.B.e. has established a cooperation with The Public Interest Law Institute (PILI) regarding their Pro Bono legal assistance program which offers Croatian NGOs vast possibilities for providing more efficient legal help to the citizens whose rights have been or are violated in the Republic of Croatia.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the announcement by the United States that it will seek a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying it embodies the country’s commitment to a “new era of engagement.” Right, UN Human Rights Council building in Geneva.

-Russian authorities should investigate the violent attack against Lev Ponomarev, a prominent Russian human rights defender, nine international human rights organizations said today. Ponomarev, 67, was attacked and seriously injured by several unidentified assailants late on the night of March 31, 2009, outside his apartment building in Moscow.

When Catherine Ajok, (right, with her child fathered by Joseph Kony), was one of the so-called Aboke girls. Late one night recently, she returned home after 13 years in the Lord’s Resistance Army’s captivity. As she walked the last stretches back to her family’s home, the people of the Apac lined the road holding candles in her honour. A chorus of women’s voices rose in ululations as she passed.

Police in the western city of Kaliningrad should drop trumped-up bribery charges against Arseny Makhlov, the founder of the independent weekly Dvornik, and allow him to work without fear of harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On 25 March, Gladys Monterroso, a well-known Guatemalan lawyer, professor
and politician, was abducted from a restaurant in Guatemala City by unidentified
assailants. The event took place less than a day after her spouse, Guatemalan
Special Prosecutor for Human Rights, Sergio Morales, published a landmark
report on human rights abuses during the country’s decades-long civil conflict.

The attack last night on Lev Ponomaryov, right, Executive Director of the independent organisation ‘For human rights,’ adds to the rapidly growing number of violent crimes against Russian opposition activists, journalists and human rights defenders.

The Dicle News Agency (DIHA) has condemned the police action against their reporter, Abdurrahman Gök, who was taken into police custody on 23 March 2009, in Siirt. He is accused of “making terrorist propaganda”. Currently, four reporters from the agency are in prison.

A court in Bosaso, the main port city of the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, yesterday sentenced freelance journalist Jama Ayanle Feyte to two years in prison, Reporters Without Borders has learned from its partner organisation in the Republic of Somalia, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Public Security Bureau in China’s Gansu province to disclose the whereabouts and legal status of Kunga Tsayang, a monk from the Amdo Labrang Tashi Kyil Monastery who has written online political commentary.

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the southeastern Congolese city of Likasi to allow two private stations to return to the air.

Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, today presented his preliminary impressions on the general human rights situation in Kosovo after a four-day visit.