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Tomorrow, 14 February, Ales Bialiatski, right, founder of the independent, but banned human rights organisation Human Rights Centre VIASNA, will receive the prestigeous Andrej Sakharov Freedom Award from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Bialiatski will attend a seminar and also the monthly solidarity with Republic of Belarus picket in front of the Norwegian parliament while in Oslo. (13-FEB-06)
 

Last month, the news broke that the Norwegian Helsinki Committee had awarded Ales Bialiatski, right, of the banned Belarusian Human Rights Centre Viasna the Andrej Sakharov Award for 2006. On the eve of his arrival to Oslo to receive the prize, Bialiatski says: -This is a sad award because it relates to the situation in the Republic of Belarus. We would rather not have awards for our efforts for human rights. (13-FEB-06)
  

President Lukashenko continues to tighten his grip on the Belarusian society. His latest display of power concerns the liquidation of youth organisation RADA, using a new law that was implemented at the beginning of this year. According to Eivind Vad Petersson of the Norwegian Youth Council the reason for the liquidation is fear for civic unrest in face of the up-coming presidential elections of March 19. (12-FEB-06)
 

Can we take for granted that religious leaders are always good and relevant agents of reconciliation? The knowledge and research about this is strikingly limited. Of acts in good faith, on the other hand, there are plenty, writes Ingrid Vik, right, Executive Director of the Nansen Dialogue Project. (09-FEB-06)
 

As part of HRH´s general ambition to keep expanding its network and increase its regional competence, Project Manager for Africa Niels Jacob Harbitz, right, has applied and been selected for another UNDP/IJ/DJE organised study tour, this time to Somaliland, late March. Harbitz took part on a similar tour of Republic of the Sudan, including visits to Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, last year. (01-FEB-06)
 

-Why doesn’t the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child apply to Northern Republic of Uganda, Mette Newth, right, a board member of HRH asked in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet yesterday. –The children are beaten into becoming unrecognisable monsters, capable of committing acts of violence your fantasy comes short of imagining. (31-JAN-06)
 

The Norwegian Tibet Committee, one of the organisations of the Human Rights House in Oslo, has played a key part in staging a big exhibition on Tibet, ranging from traditional culture to contemporary society, religious life and political plight. Chungdak Koren, right, Chairwoman of the Tibet Committe, guides through the exhibition and will introduce a film on refugee children Sunday 12 February. (30-JAN-06)
 

-Hard as this seems to imagine, not the least in East Africa, state and civil society need to learn how to trust and support, cooperate and compliment each other. If not, democracy itself will fall, HRH’s Niels Jacob Harbitz, right, stressed in his closing remarks at the seminar ‘Aid and the troubled democracies of East Africa’ last week. (27-JAN-06)
  

As Google launched its Chinese portal google.cn yesterday, defenders of freedom of expression like Chungdak Koren, right, of the Norwegian Tibet Committee, and international human rights groups protest the self-censorship regulations Google has agreed with Chinese authorities. -This is a major blow for freedom of expression and human rights in the People´s Republic of China, says Koren. -Google should never have agreed to this. (26-JAN-06)