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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

Bishop José Raúl Vera López, the 2010 Rafto Prize laureate, is a strong defender for Mexico’s most vulnerable, and once again he gave a voice to their struggles at business seminar in Bergen on 3 November and Rafto Symposium on 4 November 2011

A former Kirti monk set fire to himself in a protest on the main street in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) county town just before noon on October 15, according to exiled Tibetan sources. Norbu Damdrul, a 19-year old former monk at Kirti monastery in Ngaba, shouted “We need freedom and independence for Tibet,” and called for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet as his body was burning

On 4 November Frank Mugisha, the laureate of rafto prize 2011, in his keynote address at the Rafto Symposium spoke about his work for LGBT people in Uganda and the challenges human rights defenders are facing. The annual Rafto symposium included a number of famous human rights defenders who talked about challenges HR defenders are facing in the future.