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Former President Kim Dae-jung has stressed human rights conditions in North Korea could be improved through economic cooperation and cultural exchanges on a gradual basis, warning that any forcible and arbitrary outside move to change the human rights situation in the North would not be successful. Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Rafto Prize for human rights in 2000. (16-DEC-2005)
 

On December 9 three members of the Burmese organisation «Assistance Association for Political Prisoners» (AAPP) released the report “The Darkness We See: Torture in Burma’s Interrogation Centers and Prisons” at a press conference in the Rafto House, Bergen. Cho Cho, Kyaw Maung and Kaythi Aye Bergen told their own stories of political imprisonment. 82 year old Mr. Bjørn Simonnæs was also invited to draw a historic line between his own experiences as a prisoner of war during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Norway 60 years ago to the systematic torture of political prisoners in Burma today.  (16-DEC-2005)

Nansen Dialogue started its work in 1995, following a spontaneous idea of Inge Eidsvaag, tells Ingrid Vik, right, the network’s current Director. -Visiting Sarajevo, an Olympic city like Lillehammer – but under siege ten years after it hosted the Olympics – he came to the idea of organising courses in democracy, human rights and peaceful conflict resolution for participants from the former Yugoslavia with different backgrounds, in neutral surroundings at the Nansen Academy. (16-DEC-05)
 

The Human Rights House Foundation and the Swedish Helsinki Committee have urged the Nakhchivanian authorities in a letter to recall all charges against the secretary of the election commission, Nushabe Gafarly. Gafarly, arrested after refusing to sign protocols on the parliamentary elections, which were marked by numerous irregularities. After being pressured she eventually did sign the protocols. In spite of this she is being prosecuted now. Read the protest letter here. (16-DEC-05)
 

Selling ‘=Oslo,’ the still very new magazine whose revenue goes half-n-half to the vendors and back into production of more issues, has changed the lives of the vendors. It has given me a reason to get up, said vendor 018 Dagfrid Fosen, normally to be found outside the shopping mall CCVest, in honour of Vibeke Omberg, the initiator and editor, on the event of Omberg receiving the Norwegian Amnesty Award 2005 earlier this week. (16-NOV-05)
 

The Human Rights House Foundation and the Swedish Helsinki Committee have urged the Nakhchivanian authorities in a letter to recall all charges against the secretary of the election commission, Nushabe Gafarly. Gafarly, arrested after refusing to sign protocols on the parliamentary elections, which were marked by numerous irregularities. After being pressured she eventually did sign the protocols. In spite of this she is being prosecuted now. Read the protest letter here. (16-DEC-05)
 

On the 6-th of December there was created the Public Research Commission by the initiative of human rights defenders and lawyers. The Commission is to investigate the cases of violence, occurred on the 26 November protest action. The final output of the Commission will be the public opinion report on the basis of the data, collected during the research. On the 13-th of December at the first reporting meeting of the Commission there were outlined the preliminary results of the work. (14-DEC-2005)

On the 10-th of December – the International Human Rights Day, human rights activists all over the world are organizing the events. One of the global actions, taking place in numerous world countries is the 24h Letter Writing Marathon, initially organized by the Amnesty International. For the second time Republic of Azerbaijan took part in this campaign and raised the voice in defence of dozens of people, whose rights had been violated (13-DEC-2005).

Marking the 10th anniversary of the work of the Nansen Dialogue project, one of the in-house organisations of the Human Rights House in Oslo, the network that has emerged throughout the last decade hosted a seminar yesterday entitled ‘Dialogue – more than words’. The seminar also saw the official launch of a book, bearing the same title as the seminar, about the network’s history and activities. (14-DEC-05)
 

Since  10 December 1948  the International Day of Human Rights is celebrated around the world.“The situation of human rights in the Republic of Belarus is extremely tense”, — stated a doctor of juridical science,- “it is hard to find any political rights stated in the Declaration that are not violated in the Republic of Belarus.That’s why, pitifully enough, we meet this day with pity instead of joy”, — he concluded.” The pitiful situation of human rights is confirmed with the commentaries of Stsiapan Sukharenka, chair of the Belarusian KGB, concerning the amendments to the Criminal Code that will be enforced on 20 December (the Day KGB worker). (13-DEC-05)

The British government should publish the minutes of a meeting where George Bush said he wanted to bomb the Arab satellite station al-Jazeera, regardless of the consequences, a tabloid journalist at the heart of the story has said. Index on Censorship’s Andrew Walker reports (08-DEC-05).

Marking the December 10 as an International Day of Human Rights the CHC warned public about the increase of human rights violations in Republic of Croatia. For the first time since 1996 the human right situation in the Republic of Croatia deteriorated seriously, said Zarko Puhovski, Chairman of the CHC. (12-DEC-05)