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Thursday February 15, Rafto Human Rights Award laureate from 2002 Sidi Mohammed Daddach, right, visits the Human Rights House in Oslo. Daddach, who was released in 2001, was the longest serving human rights activist in Moroccan prisons ever, with the major part of his sentence, 14 of the total 24 years, served on death row. He was released after sustained pressure from Western Saharan and international human rights groups. Read the full invitation to the meeting, in Norwegian, below. (12-FEB-07)
  

Following pressure from the Rafto Foundation and 30 other Norwegian human rights organisations, among them the Human Rights House Foundation, Sidi Mohammed Daddach had his passport back late last year. The passport had been confiscated since 2003. Below is the letter that did the trick, addressed to the Moroccan Minister of the Interior. (12-FEB-07)
 

The Karen Women´s Organization (KWO) today launches its report State of Terror, which documents in detail the terrible treatment suffered by women in the Kren state at the hands of the Burmese army. Among other things, the report documents the army´s systematic use of rape as a weapon of ethnic discrimination, suppression, and ultimately, war. The Norwegian Burma Committee supports the KWO, and stresses that the situation in the Karen state has gone from bad to worse in the last year. (12-FEB-07)
 

In the Algerian hammada, a hot and harsh region of the Sahara, more than half the Sahrawi people have been waiting for 31 years to go home. In this first article of many that will appear on the Oslo and Bergen subpages in the next weeks, www.humanrightshouse.org will focus on the human rights situation in Western Sahara. The occasion of this focus are the visits to Oslo and Bergen by two key human rights defenders from the region; Sidi Mohammed Daddach and Aminatou Haidar. (10-FEB-07) 
 

Different actors have called for a boycott of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing because the People´s Republic of China violates fundamental human rights. Others claim that since the Olympics is full of politics anyway; the political aspects of the Games can be made use of through presence and possible dialogue. In any way, the coming Olympics is a good occasion to discuss sports role in reconciliation work. (09-FEB-07) 
 

Reporters Without Borders has named U Win Tin, right, “Journalist of the Year” for his commitment to freedom of the press in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar).  U Win Tin, a 76-year-old Burmese journalist, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for “subversion” and “anti-government propaganda” in 1989. -The Norwegian Burma Committee warmly welcomes RSF’s choice, says information officer Åse Sand. -Burma is one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world and among the worst violators of press freedom. (05-FEB-07)
  

Nobel laureate and South African anti-apartheid struggle hero Desmond Tutu today caught the Indian leadership unaware by strongly advocating independence for Tibet soon after receiving the coveted Gandhi Peace Prize. -Hugely important and very encouraging, says chair woman of the Norwegian Tibet Committee (NTC) Chungdak Koren, right, in Bruxelles last year on the event of the awarding of the Light of Truth Award by the international Campaign for Tibet, also to Bishop Tutu. (31-JAN-07)
 

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) yesterday launched a new report, addressing the need for firm leadership on human rights in the Republic of Turkey. Deputy Secretary General of NHC Gunnar M. Karlsen, right, says that the report deals with issues of torture, ‘war’ against terror, the Kurdish problem, freedom of thought and expression and freedom of organization. (26-JAN-07)
   

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee´s adviser on the Balkans, Ole Benny Lilleås, right, will observe the parliamentary elections in Serbia on Sunday 21 January. The elections are the last before the process to decide on the status of Kosovo will be brought to its conclusion. The nationalists have scored high on the opinion polls and an election result reflecting that may not only affect the decision on Kosovo, but also the human rights situation in both Serbia and Kosovo. (19-JAN-07)