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Martin Paulsen (33) is the new Head of Rafto Prize Committee. He is a Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Bergen specializing in Eastern European languages and literature, as well as Internet studies.

Rafto Laureate 2011 Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) by Frank Mugisha gravely opposes the Parliament’s re-tabling of Hon. David Bahati’s notorious “Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009 on 7 February 2012 at the opening of the 9th Parliament.

The authoritarian Central Asian state’s leader, who assumed power in 2006 after the death of eccentric President Saparmurat Niyazov, faces seven loyal members of the elite on the ballot, none of whom dared to criticise him during the campaign. In turn Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is predicted to win vote with critics branding rival candidates as token challengers

Iranian journalist, blogger and activist Asieh Amini has received the Oxfam Novib / Pen Award on January 19 from the hands of human rights ambassador Lionel Veer. The presentation took place at the ‘Theatre at the Spui’ in The Hague, during the Writers Unlimited Winter Nights Festival. This award is presented every year to writers and journalists who are persecuted or have had to flee because of their critical writing

The Rafto Foundation calls on the Norwegian MFA to raise the issue of Uyghur asylum seekers sentenced to life in prison and long prison terms in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), China

The Rohingyas of Burma are stateless and have been living in misery for decades. They are a forgotten people. Why is it so difficult to find a solution to their situation and to give them a life with dignity?

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International is appalled by the killing of Raúl Régulo Garza Quirino, reporter for the weekly newspaper La Ultima Palabra. The journalist was gunned down on 6 January 2012 by a gang in Cadereyta, state of Nuevo León, and is the first journalist in Mexico to be murdered in 2012. The WiPC calls on the Mexican authorities to carry out a thorough investigation into Garza’s killing and to bring to an end Mexico’s climate of impunity in which attacks such as these take place

The Rafto Foundation is seeking nominations for the 2012 Rafto Prize for Human Rights. Every year since 1987, the Rafto Foundation has awarded the Rafto Prize to advocates of human rights and democracy

Around 150 young people from Belarus and from the Norwegian youth organisation, Fantasiforbundet, joined the forum”Youth for a safe, just and human world” in Belarus from 3 to 4 December 2011