Latest

An open letter concerning the amendment to the Assemblies Act has been a joint initiative involving 32 NGOs, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Association of Leaders of Local Civic Groups, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the Panoptykon Foundation, the Campaign against Homophobia and the Association for Legal Intervention.

The European Court of Human Rights released the judgment in the case Grzywaczewski v. Poland. Once again, ECtHR found that Poland had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting the use of torture or other inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

During a session in Geneva the United Nations Human Rights Council made an evaluation of the Poland’s record of compliance with the country’s human rights obligations under the Universal Periodic Review, UPR. The Council issued as many as 124 recommendations to Poland.

The HFHR presented its comments on the latest legislative proposal of the regulation of correction in press law to the Senate’s Legislative Committee. In its position statement, the HFHR positively assessed the proposed modifications to the current draft amendment. The new proposals changed its previous version which received wide criticism from, among others, the Helsinki Foundation, press publishers and journalists or even the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

In February 2012, the Circuit Court in Nowy Sącz ruled that former Moscow prosecutor Alexander Ignatenko may be extradited to Russia. A month later, the Appellate Court in Cracow upheld the first-instance court decision. The case files were sent to the Minister of Justice who is to finally decide on Mr Ignatenko’s extradition. The HFHR issued an opinion in this case.

In May 2012 on the HFHR’s premises the meeting was hosted with Liubov Kovalyova, mother of Vladislav Kovalyov, a man sentenced to death for his alleged complicity in carrying out a bomb attack at a Minsk metro station on 11 April 2011. The sister of the executed Belarusian also took part in the meeting. Valdislav Kovalyov’s mother and sister still don’t know when the execution was carried out and where their son and brother was buried. Under the Belarusian law such information is not to be revealed.

The Foundation appealed to the Mayor of Śródmieście District in respect of the recent decision of the Board of Śródmieście District, Warsaw made during the latest edition of the “Premises for Culture” initiative. Fourteen applications were submitted in response to the lease offer for the premises situated at Grzybowski Square in Warsaw. Only four organisations satisfied formal requirements: Good Karma Association, Shalom Foundation, Stanisław Brzozowski Association and Adam Smith Center.

The Ukrainian Parliament is working on drafts of two controversial legislative acts. HFHR experts alarm that the new legislation may significantly limit the rights and liberties of individuals under the pretext of protecting the public morals. In particular, it will affect the freedom of expression and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

In response to its motion for access to public information, the Foundation received an internal document of the Ministry of Finance setting out the principles of tax control over excessive income obtained from disclosed sources or income generated from undisclosed sources.