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The three Croatian Human Rights organisations; B.a.b.e. – Group for Women´s Human Rights, the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Croatian Law Centre will on this Thursday and Friday host representatives from the Human Rights House Network in Zagreb. The International Conference on “Discrimination and anti-discrimination policies” have participation the Balkans, Caucasus, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Network will also hold it annual meeting. (21-NOV-06)
  

The Rafto Foundation is glad to announce that many former Rafto Laureates will attend the historical event that is to take place this weekend in Bergen. The event wants to celebrate the work the Rafto Laureates has performed during the last 20 years. The guests include Trivimi Velliste from Estonia, Leyla Zana from Kurdistan/Turkey, Palermo Anno Uno from Italy, Ian Hancock representing the Romani people, Shirin Ebadi from Iran, Paulos Tesfagiorgis from Eritrea, Rebiya Kadeer from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Lidia Yusupova from the Chechen Republic. (02-NOV-06)
   

On October, 30th the Day in Memory of Victims of Political Repressions celebrated all over the Russian Federation. Nowadays political prisoners are appearing in the Russian Federation again and their number is increasing. There are scientists, businessmen, lawyers, members of oppositional movements and religious dissidents among them. (02-NOV-06)

On October, 29th the Anti-Fascist March against Hatred was held in the center of St Petersburg. More than 600 people, including Russian Federation Ombudsman for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin, took part in the march. Participants approved an appeal to President Putin, accusing anti-Georgian campaign launched by authorities. (02-N0V-06)

Today, the Norwegian Tibet Committe passes on a link to a cartoon made and distributed by the previously introduced (09-OCT-06) Race for Tibet campaign. The cartoon can be found here, http://www.racefortibet.org/ , at the Race for Tibet website. Race for Tibet is established to protest against China´s occupation and massive human rights violations towards Tibet in the build-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (02-NOV-06)
 

On October, 30th the Day in Memory of Victims of Political Repressions and their struggle for civil and political rights of all people was celebrated all over the Russian Federation. Today political prisoners are appearing in the Russian Federation once again and their number is increasing. There are scientists, businessmen, lawyers, members of oppositional movements and religious dissidents among them. (02-NOV-06)

The leader of the youth organization “Young Front” Zmitser Dashkevich was sentences today to 1.5 year of imprisonment because of “acting on behalf of unregistered organization”.  The cruel verdict has been passed in a closed trial by a judge Ala Bulash. Belarusian civil society expresses the active protest against the tough sentence and the existing of this Criminal Code article as such. (1-NOV-06)

The leader of the youth organization “Young Front” Zmitser Dashkevich was sentences today to 1.5 year of imprisonment because of “acting on behalf of unregistered organization”.  The cruel verdict has been passed in a closed trial by a judge Ala Bulash. Belarusian civil society expresses the active protest against the tough sentence and the existing of this Criminal Code article as such. (1-NOV-06)
  

Concern is mounting that moves by the United Nations aimed at curbing xenophobia in the media could be used to attack the freedom of the press in some countries. The United Nations’ willingness to use the word ‘defamation’ in conjunction with religion gives cover to countries that want to use blasphemy laws to target the independent media. In light of the jailing of journalists following the publication of cartoons which depicted the prophet Mohammed, free press campaigners are warning that the casual deployment of the phrase may mortally wound objective media outlets in some countries. (27-OCT-06)
 

Political aggravation of the Russian-Georgian relationship turned into mass violations of   human rights. People, who have nothing to do with politics suffer from ethnic discrimination and humiliating check-ups. Police detains all Georgians regardless of their citizenship, age and social status. (26-OCT-06)
 

-In recent years, the People´s Republic of China has gone from bad to worse, growing ever more indifferent or even arrogant to whatever messages the country gets, be it directly from various trading partners around the world, or in international fora, including the UN. What is taking place, is something close to ethnic cleansing, Rebiya Kadeer stressed during the meeting at the Oslo Human Rights House yesterday. (31-OCT-06)
 

Just over a year since she was last here, the Human Rights House in Oslo yesterday received Rebiya Kadeer, the leading Uyghur minority human rights and democracy defender. Seemingly recovered from the car ramming outside her home in Washington DC in January, her message was unmistakeably clear: If the world doesn´t put pressure on the People´s Republic of China to change its policies towards its minorities, within twenty years, they will all be threatened with eradication. (31-OCT-06)