Latest

The Human Rights House Foundation and Norwegian PEN strongly condemn the beating and arresting of journalists that were covering the arrest of presidential candidate Aleksandr Kozulin’s on Thursday 2 March. The police actions consider a severe violation of the right that all people have to practice their profession as a journalist according to article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reads the statement (15-MARCH-06).
 

Every year, hundreds of Kurdish women commit suicide, most commonly by burning themselves to death, in Kurdistan. What are the reasons why so many young women chose such a painful and dramatic way to end their lives, ask freelance journalist Abdollah Hejab and Liv Kjølseth, right, of the Norwegian Council or the Rights of the Kurds. (15-MAR-06)
 

-I cannot sleep at night because I am suffocating. I can’t walk for long periods of time. Physicians say it cannot be cured and it is the effect of the chemical bombing. said Parwin Mohammed (56) to journalist Ismail Osman in an article published by the ‘Institute for war and peace reporting’ recently. The Norwegian Council for the Rights of the Kurds (RKR) observes the sad anniversary this week. (14-MAR-06)
 

To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Norwegian PEN is focusing, together with other PEN Centres, on the case of Mexican writer and journalist Lydia Cacho, right. Cacho currently faces trial under charges of criminal defamation related to her exposure of the connection between prominent businessmen and a child pornography in her latest book. (08-MAR-06)
 

The Norwegian Oil Fund has sold almost 70% of its shares in the French oil company Total. The Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), which has been campaigning against the Fund’s investments in Total because of its contested activities in the military-ruled Asian country, is pleased. “This is very good news,” says Marte Graff Jenssen of NBC. (03-MAR-06)
 

Thursday February 23 Rafto Price laureate Lidija Yusupova visited the Human Rights House in Oslo to inform Norwegian civil society on the new NGO-law in the Russian Federation that will come into force April 10. One of the consequences of the law is that all financial transfers to Russian NGO´s in the future will have to be approved by the Russian authorities. “The new law will make it even more difficult for Russian NGO´s to do their work.” (28-FEB-06)
 

MOSTAR – The Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (NHC) and Nansen Dialogue Centre Mostar organized in February a Human Rights School for high school teachers from Mostar, Konjic and Stolac in Bosnia Hercegovina (BiH). (24-FEB-06)

For the last two weeks, the Norwegian Burma Committee and the Nobel Peace Center have held role-plays for high school students at the Human rights House in Oslo. The aim of the play was to agree upon how to end the use of child soldiers in Burma (Republic of the Union of Myanmar). The students truly became their parts: junta generals refusing all allegations; Thailand’s ministers disagreeing among themselves – there were even spies infiltrating the other groups and taping secret negotiations. (20-FEB-06)

-There is no doubt that with sufficient political will, both nationally and internationally, the conflict in Northern Republic of Uganda could have been brought to an end and the humanitiarian crisis resolved, said OCHA- director and deputy Secretary general of the UN Jan Egeland, right, at a seminar in Norway last week. (19-FEB-06)