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– Human rights education work constitutes an important investment towards fostering just societies in which all human rights of all persons are valued and respected, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour (right), at a conference in Murmansk initiated by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. (16-APR-07)
 

In its fourth report on freedom of expression conditions in Tunisia, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG) concludes that it is still increasingly important that free expression and human rights groups, as well as the international community at large still keep monitoring developments in Tunisia. (11-APR-07)
 

Tomorrow at 14:00, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights Committee of the Norwegian Medical Association co-host a seminar at the Human Rights House in Oslo on Human Rights Developments in the Republic of Turkey: The Impact of the EU Reform Process on the Fight Against Torture. From Republic of Turkey, the two key speakers are Yavuz Önen, President, and Metin Bakkalci, Executive Director of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation. (15-APR-07)
  

A the People´s Republic of China based foreign correspondent has just confirmed what the Norwegian Tibet Committee knew from numerous previous inquiries and complaints; that access to the organisation’s website is blocked from within the People´s Republic of China. The website provides information in Norwegian and English on developments of the political and human rights situation in Tibet. (10-APR-07)
 

During his five day long official visit to Morocco, the president of the Norwegian parliament, Mr. Thorbjorn Jagland, right, will raise the human rights situation in Western Sahara with the Moroccan authorities. Jagland will exert pressure on the Moroccan authorities to allow a Nordic delegation into the occupied area, and he believes the controversial Royal Council for Saharan affairs is to be considered a part of Morocco´s occupation policy.  (03-APR-07)
 

Morocco believes it has the diplomatic clout to settle Africa´s oldest territorial dispute on its terms, confident it can rely on the goodwill it has earned overseas for its pro-democracy reforms at home. But the kingdom has no easy task in pursuing its plan to grant autonomy to Western Sahara, a mineral-rich land it annexed in 1975 and where Rabat´s control is contested by independence movement Polisario. (29-MAR-07)
 

The Norwegian Council for the rights of the Kurds (RKR) has issued a statement to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs within the Norwegian Parliament, expressing deep concern about the health of Kurd leader Abdullah Öcalan, right. Hair samples smuggled out of prison show dramatically high levels of chromium and strontium. (29-MAR-07)
 

The first issue this year of Tema Kurdistan, the Norwegian Council for the Rights of the Kurds (RKR) is out, entitled ´Al Anfal – a forgotten genocide?´ Per Thorsdalen, right, has taken over from Liv Kjølseth as editor and explains that this issue is RKR´s contribution to a more wide-reaching debate on the Al Anfal campaigns and the legal dispute as to whether or not this qualifies as genocide. To read the whole issue, click here . (28-MAR-07)
 

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), a federation of 46 independent human rights organizations, today released its “Annual Report” on human rights developments in the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the year 2006. The report is entitled Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2007 (Events of 2006). (27-MAR-07)