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U.S. President Barack Obama urged Burma to release Aung San Suu Kyi in a meeting where Burma’s Prime Minister Thein Sein attended. Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 14 years under house arrest since 1989, has recently become a hero of a book for children, written by former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.

The conference, which was last held in Edinburgh in 2005, will be opened by Dalai Lama. The central theme of the conference: how parliamentarians around the world can contribute to a solution to the Tibet conflict.

Omer has reported for numerous international media outlets, including the Washington Report, Inter Press Service, Ny Tid and Morgenbladet, and worked for Norwegian People’s Aid in Gaza; he also founded the Rafah Today blog. The prize by Norwegian PEN was awarded on 16 November at House of Literature, Oslo.

At a time when US President Barack Obama is about to visit Beijing, he is urged to intervene on behalf of more than 40 writers imprisoned in the People´s Republic of China. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders appeal for a goodwill gesture regarding Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen, whose ill health is not compatible with prolonged detention, the Norwegian Tibet Committee reported.

According to a statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, the perpetrators do not discriminate. Victims of torture range from teenage girls to the elderly. -The widespread use of torture not only against political detainees but also ordinary suspects is a characteristic feature of many repressive regimes, – says Inger Lise Husøy of the Norwegian Burma Committee.

On 29 and 30 October 2009 in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv took place a Conference on the Development of Human Rights Education initiated by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the Understanding Human Rights Ukrainian Educational Program. During two days 148 participants from different countries shared their expertise and information concerning the existent examples of initiatives, projects and programs for human rights education in Ukraine and abroad.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell visited today Aung San Suu Kyi, Burna’s opposition leader, who has become an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.

Malahat Nasibova is a journalist and human rights activist. She is from Azerbaijan. Nasibova has been awarded the prize for her courageous and unwavering struggle for a free and independent press.

115 civil society organizations, including the Norwegian Burma Committee, and political parties from 20 countries today submitted an open letter to China’s President Hu Jintao calling for the suspension of oil and gas pipelines through Burma in order to prevent rights abuses and regional instability, avoiding financial and image risks to the People´s Republic of China.