Latest

The World Press Freedom Committee – an umbrella organization representing 45 press freedom groups from throughout the world – expresses its profound concern for the fate of Alhaj Warrag, editor-in-chief of “Ajras El-Hurriyya” independent newspaper, who was arrested on March 19 and taken into custody as part of an abusive court procedure.

Journaliste en Danger (JED) is concerned about attempts to silence media outlets during the current parliamentary crisis, and in particular, to stifle all reporting on the president of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe. Kamerhe is at the centre of the parliamentary crisis sparked by the efforts of his own party, the Alliance for the Presidential Majority (AMP) to force his resignation.

Marek Antoni Nowicki, former President of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, has been awarded the Edward J. Wende Award, while Professor Zbigniew Hołda, the Foundation’s current Vice-President, right, has been awarded the ‘Nagroda Tolerancji’ Award for promoting Tolerance, and the ‘Złoty Paragraf’ Advocate of the Year Award.

More people were executed in Asia than in any other part of the world in 2008. the People´s Republic of China carried out more executions than the rest of the world put together. By contrast, in Europe, only one country continues to use the death penalty: Republic of Belarus.

Latest 11:00 GMT: The organisers of the conference mentioned below has just confirmed their decision to cancel the event. In the announcement, made in Johannesburg this morning, the diplomatic tension that has emerged between South Africa and the People´s Republic of China over the visa to HH Dalai Lama, right, was given as the reason for the cancellation. Read yesterday’s press release from the Norwegian Tibet Committee below.

In 2008, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia has developed a Strategy on Demographic Development of the Republic of Macedonia 2008 – 2015. The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in FYR Macedonia asks whether the Government really has a strategy or is this just another ad hoc measure that will be hardly implemented in practice.

Peaceful education and activism

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrest of Tibetan writer Kunga Tseyang on 17 March 2009, and the re-arrest of Jigme Gyatso, a monk who helped Dhondup Wangchen make “Leaving fear behind,” a 2008 documentary featuring interviews with more than 100 Tibetans, including monks and elderly people.

The Ugandan army’s sudden withdrawal from the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, after three months of a futile effort to capture rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, has caused panic across northern Republic of Uganda. Many in northern Republic of Uganda who have been enjoying more than two years of peace after two decades of war, fear that the Ugandan military’s failure to capture Kony has opened the door for his army’s return. Right, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, spokesman of the Ugandan Army.

Maxim Zolotarev, an editor with the independent Molva Yuzhnoye Podmoskovye newspaper, was attacked with pepper spray and then beaten with clubs as he left for work at about 12:30 p.m. on March 12. The unknown attackers fled in a Mitsubishi sedan.

CURE Foundation from Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly from Republic of Srpska organized brunch with journalists last week in HRH Sarajevo, on the topic: “Blind and Persons with Impaired Vision in the Media Mirror”.

Children’s rights and monitoring of children’s rights in MK