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The new Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s report shows that over the past several years, six members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have developed a common system, where individuals who are denied entry to one of the six member states automatically are denied entry to the others. This means an attempt of the states to limit contact between human rights activists at home with their colleagues abroad.

Norway must take the opportunity to address significant contradictions in the Republic of Kazakhstan chairmanship at the Summit, says Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General of Norwegian Helsinki Committee. We should not allow a well-polished façade to blur the fact that Republic of Kazakhstan has been using this chairmanship to get international acceptance of their poor human rights record.

HRHF, represented by Vugar Goyaev, manager of HRH Baku, travels to Strasbourg today as part of an NGO delegation to lobby for Azeri journalist Eynulla Fatullayev’s release. Reporters Without Borders and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers are also part of the joint advocacy effort.

Both Burma and Republic of Azerbaijan let their parliamentary elections, held on the same day – 7 November 2010 – be followed by the release of high-profile political prisoners. While the world condemned the unfair elections, the releases of Aung San Suu Kyi and two Azeri bloggers were widely applauded. Both regimes seem to want to turn international attention away from difficult topics.

One year ago, on November 16, 2009, the Russian lawyer and whistle blower Sergey Magnitsky died in the pre-trial detention centre Matrosskaya Tishina at the age of 37. Magnitsky represented the interests of the Hermitage Capital Fund and revealed fraud from the Russian budget carried out with the participation of Russian law enforcement officers. As a result Magnitsky was arrested himself and held in prison without trial.

For some 20 years, Aung San Suu Kyi has been denied her rights, held by force behind the walls of her home, and punished for her faith in democracy, human rights and in the rights of the people of Burma to live free from fear. Yesterday Aung San Suu Kyi was freed. International organisations call on the government of Burma to immediately release all of the prisoners of conscience in the country.

Award-winning Iranian author Mansour Koushan receives the Ossietzky award for 2010. A key novelist, playwright, poet, theatre and film director and literary critic in his home country, Koushan took part in the establishment of an independent Iranian writer’s association. In exile, he remains an outspoken critic of Iran’s repressive regime.

A complaint concerning the unfair trial and subsequent degrading treatment of Yevgeniy Zhovtis, one of Kazakhstan’s leading human rights defenders, was filed to the UN Human Rights Committee this week. Zhovtis received the 2010 Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Sakharov Freedom Award.

On 7 November, the first general election in nearly two decades will take place in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar). The media is restricted from reporting on opposition campaigns and people are denied the right to freedom of expression. Human rights organisations are gravely concerned that the upcoming elections will not be free, fair and inclusive and do not believe that it will be a meaningful step towards the promotion of human rights and democracy in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar).