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Tomorrow, on UN?s day to combat female genital mutilation (FGM), human rights organisations appeal to religious leaders across the world to speak up for zero tolerance to this practice. -Female circumcision is not only a violation of personal integrity and human rights. It is also a cause of extreme pain and represents a serious health hazard, says Norwegian Church Aid?s adviser on gender issues, Thora Holter. (5-FEB-05) 
 

www.humanrightshouse.org hereby joins Reporters without Borders’ request to all advocates of freedom of expression to sign the below online petition urging the Gambian government to open an independent inquiry into the murder of journalist Deyda Hydara. Hydara, one of Gambia’s most respected journalists, was gunned down on 16 December 2004. Witnesses have proven scared of speaking out. (4-FEB-05)
 

Enormous hopes rested on the Government of Republic of the Sudan (GoS) and the rebels Republic of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) when they signed a comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in Naivasha, Republic of Kenya, on Sunday, 9 January. If sustained, it will mark the end of a more than two decades of war and allowing Sudan’s people to return to a civilian lifestyle with the accompanying rights and freedoms. (4-FEB-05)
 

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has announced that it will participate in the forthcoming parliamentary elections under protest. According to the party’s spokesman, Paul Themba Nyathi, MDC has abandoned plans to boycott the vote to protest political violence and unfair voting conditions in Zimbabwe. (4-FEB-05)
  

A U.N. special commission, which refused to declare the widespread killings in the Republic of the Sudan as genocide,’ has been criticised for restraining its condemnation of the massacre of some 400,000 Sudanese. Reacting to the report released by the commission Monday, Claudio Cordone of Amnesty International said “the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region are no less serious than genocide.” (3-FEB-05)
 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has met its Zimbabwean counterparts today after the union federation was turned away at Harare airport yesterday. Cosatu spokesperson Paul Notyhawa said the two federations would meet in Musina in South Africa’s Limpopo province instead. “The meeting will cover all the topics which would have been discussed in Harare,” he said. (3-FEB-05)
 

If the Croatian authorities fail to turn in general Gotovina until the beginning of March 17 to the Hague Tribunal, the European Commission will postpone the negotiations for joining the EU – warned Oli Rehn, commissioner to the European Commission for Enlargement.  (2-FEB-05)
 

In cooperation with Bergen Kunsthall, the Egil Rafto Human Rights House arranges seminars, lectures and film screening. The topic of these events is in different ways tied to one of this spring’s main exhibitions at Kunsthall, “Time Suspended”. The exhibition, “Time Suspended”, explores the time perspective of refugees’ lives, focusing especially on long-lasting conflicts. (02-FEB-2005)

Washington, Jan 27 – The United States will press Beijing to free jailed Uyghur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, a U.S. senior official said Jan. 26 at a ceremony at Capitol Hill in which Kadeer was honored in absentia with Norway’s Rafto Prize for Human Rights. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Randall Schriver said that Washington’s concerns over Kadeer, 58 and a prominent member of China?s Uighur ethnic group in the largely Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, would be raised with the Chinese government.  (02-FEB-2005)
 

-According to Human Rights Watch´s recently released annual report for 2004, Burma is still one of the world?´s most repressive regimes, says Aase Sand of the Norwegian Burma Committee, one of the member organisations of the Human Rights House in Oslo. -Burma still has the highest number of child soldiers in the world and continues to hold approximately 1300 political prisoners, says Sand. (2-FEB-05)
 

Niels Jacob Harbitz, HRH’s Project Manager for East Africa, has been selected to take part in an advanced course in conflict and war, humanitarian crisis and relief operation journalism, co-ordinated and funded by the United Nations Development Programme. Commencing in Copenhagen, the course will move on to Khartoum and, unless the scurity situation prohibits, take its participants straight to Darfur. (2-FEB-05) 
 

-Only a democratic development in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Republic of Armenia will guarantee a peaceful solution to the conflict, the chairman of the Republic of Azerbaijan Popular Front party, Ali Kerimli, said in a meeting with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee at the Human Rights House in Oslo yesterday. The decision to set up the OSCE factfinding mission was made after Republic of Azerbaijan put the issue of Armenians´ settlement in the occupied lands on the agenda of the UN General Assembly session. (2-FEB-2005)