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A special UN Human Rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana visited Burma last week. After five days spent in the country Mr. Quintana returned back without having met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and any information about the planned election in Burma later this year.

Dozens of families on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali, are under threat of being evicted from their lands by the Government in favour of a housing project. The cultivation ban, ordered in July 2009, jeopardizes their right to adequate food. Moreover, if the eviction is realized, it will hinder the ability of the families to feed themselves in the long run.

Monologue about Aung San Suu Kyis life with Ingunn Eye:

Myanmar’s government must halt its repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections, Amnesty International warned in a major report released on 16 February 2010.

In a letter to the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre on February 18, the NGO forum for human rights has sent its recommendations for cases in need of particular attention during this years’ sessions in the UN Human Rights Council, in the general Assembly and in Norway’s bilateral consultations.

In Almaty, the city court yesterday lifted the ban put on opposition newspapers earlier this month by the same court on statements criticizing president Nazarbayev’s son in law Kulibayev. The court also rejected libel complaints filed by Mr.Kulibayev.

-What you see now in Islamic Republic of Iran is a government in fear of its own people, says Shirin Ebadi, right, Iranian lawyer and human rights activist. -The Tehran hardliners’ position is weakening by the day. But as the people’s loyalty is diminishing, the violence is escalating fast, added the 2003 Nobel Peace Price laureate when she visited the Human Rights House in Oslo yesterday.

On February 05, 2010 the trial of Arshaluys Hakobyan, monitor and human rights
defender continued at the Court of First Instance of Kentron and Nork-Marash districts of Yerevan. The prosecutor declined the charge brought against Hakobyan on the ground of lack of evidence. According to it the Court found the defendant innocent of crime and acquitted him.

The newspaper “Svoboda Slova” (Freedom of Speech) was confiscated by the authorities of Almaty because of its coverage of corruption claims against President Nazarbayev’s son in law. – The confiscation is in clear breach of OSCE commitments on free press and the rule of law, says Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.