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On 15th November 2012 Norwegian PEN will mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer.

While the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women welcomes legislative improvements and Turkmenistan’s submission of its country report, it also notes that it is “seriously concerned about attitudes and policies reinforcing discriminatory traditional norms, harmful practices, patriarchal attitudes and deep-rooted stereotypes”.

Recently Norwegian Minister of Development Erik Solheim announced that Norway will make an assessment of the legitimacy of developing countries’ debt to Norway. This means that the government will be the first ever to carry out a creditor’s debt audit.

FIAN International welcomes the adoption of the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF) as an important achievement for the human rights-based approach to food security policy. Adopted during the 39th session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on 17 October 2012, the GSF, as the overarching framework, will be the primary global reference for coordination and coherence in decision making on food and agricultural issues.

On 16 October, World Food Day, FIAN International asks the public to take a stand for the rights of Mozambican peasants experiencing right to food violations at the hands of European investors.

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is disappointed to learn of the seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence given to Kazakhstan’s opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov on 8 October 2012. Kozlov, head of the main opposition party in Kazakhstan, Alga! (Forward), was convicted for allegedly “inciting social discord”.

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee remains deeply concerned about the current human rights situation in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which begs for improvement on every aspect of fundamental human rights, says Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Bjørn Engesland. Both states are counted amongst the most repressive not only in the Central Asian region, but also in the world as a whole. Torture, political use of the judiciary and repression of media and civil society are widespread.

FIAN International expresses its support for the struggle for the rights to food, to land, to water, to seeds and to forest of more than 400 million people in India who remain entrenched in poverty. Jan Satyagraha 2012 – March for Justice – is a crucial mobilisation of indigenous peoples, landless, peasants and other food producers in India, towards realisation of their rights, but, in reality, it is much more than that.

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee expresses genuine support and solidarity for Belgrade Pride Parade and Pride Week 2012 and condemns the decision by the Serbian authorities to ban Belgrade Pride 2012.