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Rabab Amidane, right, is awarded the Norwegian Student’s Peace Prize for her work for human rights, students’ rights and peace in Western Sahara. Amidane is contributing to inform the world about the discrimination and the violence that the Sahrawis are exposed to by the Moroccan government. Even though Amidane uses peaceful means in her fight for human rights, she has been exposed to torture and arrested by the Moroccan police several times.

Rafto Laureate Leyla Zana attended the 5th international conferance on EU, Republic of Turkey and the Kurds in Brussels on 28 January. Zana, together with several speakers, expressed their request for real changes in the Republic of Turkey.

The office of the Iranian human rights lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, was closed down on December 21 last year and her secretary was arrested in January 2009. Despite international recognition Shirin Ebadi has been harassed by Iranian authorities for years.

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.