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Ahead of Burma’s upcoming Parliamentary elections, election observers and foreign journalists will not be allowed into Burma for its first polls in two decades, officials say. The restriction is the latest in a series of moves that critics say guarantees Burma’s first elections in 20 years will favor the military government.

A Tibetan writer and intellectual jailed in April has been released on “bail pending trial” on 14 October, Beijing based Tibetan writer Woser said on her blog. At the same time two Tibetan students in the western province of Gansu sentenced to two-year jail terms in connection with protests at a local middle school.

The exiled Turkmen human rights defender Farid Tuhbatullin has received reliable information that an order to remove him quietly has been issued in his home country, Turkmenistan. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee takes this threat seriously and urges in a letter to Austrian authorities that they ensure the safety of Tuhbatullin and his family.

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and Norwegian Burma Committee have the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with Mary Callahan: The 2010 Election in Burma/Myanmar in Historical Perspective.

During a conference on Strengthening Human Rights in the Russian Federation organized by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in cooperation with Amnesty International Norway in Oslo last month, a resolution on establishing the Natalia Estemirova Documentation Center was adopted by a group of nine leading Russian and international human rights organizations.

Foodfirst Information and Action Network – FIAN – is co-hosting two seminars today, both as part of the annual Blue October campaign, bringing together some 20 Norwegian NGOs all concerned with the right to water and sanitation.

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.

Awarding the Nobel peace Prize to the brave Chinese human rights defender Liu Xiaobo will strengthen focus on human rights in the People´s Republic of China. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) hopes that the Nobel Peace prize to Liu Xiaobo will contribute to improving the situation for him and other human rights defenders in the People´s Republic of China. Liu is well known as an unwavering and unorthodox fighter for fundamental human rights in the People´s Republic of China.

Burmese exiled media groups are calling for international support in ending cyber attacks that have crippled two news websites over the past week. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy magazine, which provide independent coverage of current affairs in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar), have been the target of intense attacks which it is believed originate from the Burmese government.