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The HFHR has addressed the Human Rights Defender with a formal intervention regarding limited access to public services due to the candidate’s past health issues. The intervention concerns a 37-year old man with a history of cardiovascular health condition. The person was ascribed to category “E” by a conscript medical evaluation committee (long-term and complete inability to serve in the army in the time of peace, call-up and war).

We have the pleasure to announce that the 13th International Film Festival WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film now accepts submissions of films. The festival will take place on 6-12 December 2013. The deadline for submitting films is 5 August 2013.

The Supreme Administrative Court will refer to the European Court of Justice a question for a preliminary ruling in the case of the Teisseyre family, heirs to a pre-war owner of assets in Lwow, a major city in then-eastern Poland.

The HFHR has presented an amicus curiae brief in the case of J.H. The case involves an online violation of personal interests consisting in uploading to websites the recorded conversation of J.H. with a police officer during which J.H. reports a fire set to a nearby field.

A joint statement by the Helsinki Committee in Poland and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights warns that the draft law “on proceedings against mentally disturbed persons who pose threat to life, health or sexual liberty of others” may infringe human rights protection standards.

The Court of Appeal in Warsaw has dismissed the appeal of the defendant, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), concerning the protection of personal rights of the claimant, journalist Bogdan Wróblewski (case file number I ACa 1002/12). The Court reaffirmed the earlier ruling by the Regional Court which had decided to maintain the claim.

The winners of third edition of the Best Human Rights MA thesis contest organised by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights have been announced. The board of the contest, chaired by Professor Ewa Łętowska, decided to grant three awards and one special prize.

Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska, director of the Observatory of Media Freedom in Poland has been awarded the Article 54 Journalists’ Prize by the Polish Journalists Association. Article 54 of Poland’s Constitution stipulates that “The freedom to express opinions, to acquire and to disseminate information shall be ensured to everyone. Preventive censorship of the means of social communication and the licensing of the press shall be prohibited”.

The Ministry of Justice informed HFHR that Minister Jarosław Gowin, while commenting on the allegations against Zbigniew Siemiątkowski in the investigation of secret CIA prisons in Poland in a radio interview, based his comments exclusively on his assumptions as to the possible course of the proceedings.