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A huge Norwegian research vessel has in secret travelled to the coast of occupied Western Sahara. This weekend the Norwegian company Fugro-Geoteam started a controversial operation to carry out oil exploration, in defiance of the advice of the UN and the Norwegian government.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) believes that a rise in reported arrests for terrorism, extremism and other state security charges in East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the People´s Republic of China (PRC) in 2008 represents a concerted campaign to stamp out all forms of dissent among Uyghurs in the region. UHRP is concerned that behind the officially-reported numbers lies systemic repression that blurs all distinction between peaceful dissent and alleged criminal activity.

-The mob violence occurring after the Iranian government unleashed its campaign of persecution against Shirin Ebadi shows that her life is in great danger.-Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

In 2002, the Rafto Prize was awarded to the Saharawi symbol of freedom and liberation, Sidi Mohammed Daddach. At the time, he had endured more years in prison than outside. Six years on, he finds himself under constant surveillance, and Western Sahara still under Moroccan occupation.

A Turkish court sentenced the Kurdish human rights activist Leyla Zana (47), right, to 10 years in prison on 4 December, reported Reuters, BBC and other international media. Zana was awarded the Rafto Prize in 1994.

No less than 426 organisations signed a petition letter, demanding from the EU Commission that occupied Western Sahara be kept clearly outside of the so- called Advanced Status cooperation that Morocco currently is being granted. The petition was sent to the EU Commission this morning.

The network of organisations and activists lobbying the companies in occupied Western Sahara have started a campaign that calls on the European Union to exclude Western Sahara from Moroccan-EU partnership. Have your organisation sign before 3 December.

Today, Aminatou Haidar, the Saharawi human rights defender, received the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for campaigning for the self-determination of Western Sahara and against government abuses and disappearances of prisoners of conscience.for her human rights work. Read here the address that she gave at the award ceremony and reception at the US Senate in Washington DC.

Amnesty Region Vest invites you to a concert which is organised on the occasion of Amnesty International’s “Small Places Tour”