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With many African countries marking the 50th anniversary of their independence, 2010 should have been a year of celebration but the continent’s journalists were not invited to the party. The East and Horn of Africa continues to be the region with the least press freedom, according to the newest 2010 World Press Freedom Index made by Reporters Without Borders. However some journalists evaluate the Index for Africa as a “joke”.

Belgrade Pride 2010 began on 10 October in beautiful weather with a call for tolerance. The violence that erupted outside the venue of the march proved that tolerance is yet to be achieved. The Pride organized almost ten years after the last same event in Belgrade. It brings hope and can become a turning point for future dialogue in Serbia.

Chinese government attempts to block the news by blacking out domestic and foreign media coverage of the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement awarding jailed human rights activist Liu Xiaobo the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. His wife, Liu Xia, as reports Amnesty Inernational, has been cut off from the rest of the world.

It is four years since the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead as she was entering the lift to her apartment in Moscow. Since then, more journalists and human rights defenders have been killed in the Russian Federation. Others have faced threats. No media outlet has lost more staff members than Novaya Gazeta – Politkovskaya’s employer. Neither the murderers nor any possible assassins’ paymasters have been convicted.

Norwegian NGOs criticize Norway for being a brake in the UN human rights work, and require Norwegian authorities to sign UN agreement UN agreement on an international appeals body for economic, social and cultural rights. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural rights comes into force if at least 10 countries ratify it.

José Raúl Vera López (65), the Catholic bishop of Saltillo, Northern Mexico, is awarded the Rafto Prize 2010 for his struggle for human rights and social justice. He is an uncompromising critic of power abuse and a fearless defender of migrants, indigenous peoples, and other groups at risk in Mexican society.

Alim Abdiriyim, son of Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer, is being tortured and otherwise ill-treated in detention, according to his family. They believe his life is at risk. He has been in prison in Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of the People´s Republic of China since 2006 on tax evasion charges. Amnesty International Norway urges Chinese government to ensure that Alim Abdiriyim is not subjected to torture in prison and calls to write an appeal.

The recipient of the Rafto Human Rights Prize for 2010 will be announced on 23 September 2010 at the Rafto Human Rights House in Bergen. The announcement of the recipient will be webcasted on the Rafto website. The Prize laureate will be honoured at a ceremony on 7 November 2010, at the National Venue of Theatre in Bergen, Norway.

Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have imposed travel restrictions on the region’s ethnic minorities since the regional capital Urumqi was rocked by deadly ethnic rioting last year, local residents and travel industry sources said.