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U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on Iranian authorities to take immediate measures to prevent any further harassment of Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and to ensure Ebadi’s safety.

-The mob violence occurring after the Iranian government unleashed its campaign of persecution against Shirin Ebadi shows that her life is in great danger.-Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS) resolutely condemns the 30 December 2008 decision of Azerbaijan’s National Television and Radio Council (NTRC) to cease the FM broadcasts of Azerbaijan’s three foreign radio broadcasters, Radio Free Europe (RFERL), Voice of America (VOA) and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), as of 1 January 2009.

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the 1 January 2009 murder of Radio Shabelle reporter Hassan Mayow Hassan, who was gunned down by a member of a pro-government militia in Afgooye, 30 kilometres south of Mogadishu.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the murder of Hassan Mayow Hassan, a Somali journalist, who was shot dead in the Afgoye District of lower Shabelle region in southern Republic of Somalia yesterday.

While Judge Birtukan Mideksa, right, leader of Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) / Andinet, the strongest opposition party, was arrested, Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, one of the most senior human rights activists in the country, was beaten by security forces today. Independent activists and human rights organisations alike have condemned the Ethiopian government’s acts, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Mideksa, and all other prisoners of conscience in the country.

In 2008, the life and livelihood of Somali journalists have once again been in danger. Attacks to kill, hurt, harass and silence journalists have been persistent throughout the year, according to the Annual Report of Press Freedom Violations in the Republic of Somalia, issued today by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).

Tiampati Ole Kirgoty, 45, looks tired and can hardly support his frail body. He and his two wives are HIV positive. They are supposed to pick up their monthly prescriptions of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) at the district hospital in Narok, capital of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, but this presents a dilemma for the Kirgotys who belong to a nomadic Maasai community.

The Russian human rights community expresses anxiety on the proposed amendments of the “spying” articles in the Russian Criminal Code. In their opinion, the sum of the amendments adds up to a return to Stalin’s times, when anybody who dared criticize the authorities could be labeled “a spy” and brought to prison, often never to be seen again.

A newspaper columnist was found guilty of slander against Macedonian Premier Nikola Gruevski for comments made last year refering to Gruevski’s role in the controversial privatization of oil refinery OKTA in the late 1990s, a court said on Monday.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of ACAT, FIDH, OMCT, Global Witness and Frontline, strongly condemn the closing by Iranian authorities of the offices of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, led by Iran’s Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi yesterday.

‘Batko’ Vlaholic’s name was synonymous with terror in Grbavica in 1992, but years on, he apparently remains a free man. The name Veselin Vlahovic “Batko” continues to inspire fear among those who endured terror in the Sarajevo district of Grbavica during the war years. None of the arrest warrants issued so far have led to his actual arrest.