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From January 12 to October 31, 2010, MSF medical teams in Haiti treated more than 358,000 people, performed more than 16,500 surgeries, and delivered more than 15,000 babies, new MSF review’s numbers show. Today one of the main issues on the island is the cholera epidemic and sexual attacks on women, the newest Amnesty International report says.

2010 Rafto Prize for Mexican bishop José Raúl Vera López, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday ceremony, organized by Bergen NGOs, arrangement of a solidarity demonstration “Strategy 31“ and actions in support of Chinese prisoners of conscience were the main activities of the Human Rights House in Bergen. This is a summary of the main NGOs’ of the Bergen HRH’s activities in 2010.

Numerous human rights organizations, including the Human Rights House Foundation, addressed Belarusian President Lukashenka with a letter, condemning the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters, detentions and battery of journalists, human rights defenders and opposition candidates during the 19 December post-election rally in Minsk.

A Uyghur journalist working for an official Chinese radio service has been sentenced to life in prison following a secret trial conducted earlier this year. Memetjan Abdulla, an editor for the Uyghur service of the People´s Republic of China National Radio, was sentenced in April in a closed trial in Urumqi, capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

East and Horn of Africa is the most dangerous region in the world for journalists. Out of 145 reporters, editors, and photojournalists held behind bars on 1 December 2010, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 25 are imprisoned in this region. 17 of them are jailed in State of Eritrea.

While Republic of Belarus prepares for a presidential election on 19 December, Gennady Grushevoy, the 1999 Rafto Prize laureate from Republic of Belarus, and the Rafto Foundation organised a youth festival in Minsk in the beginning of December 2010.

The embassy will be handed over tens of thousands of signatures on the protest letter to Liu Xiaobo, collected in Norway and internationally.

The banners for the demonstration will call “Free Liu Xiaobo!” and “Free all Prisoners of conscience in China”.

The procession will start with speeches at Youngstorget and end in front of the Grand Hotel, where a picture of Liu Xiaobo will be projected throughout the hotel front in the absence of the Nobel Peace Prize winner on the balcony.

There will also be held torchlight processions in Trondheim and Kristiansand.

Three decades ago the People´s Republic of China changed it policy: opened itself to the international trade and invited world community to cooperate. Since then its economy is growing impressively. Unfortunately there has been not much progress in political reforms. The question is: can the recent situation continue?