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The fact of being a carrier of HBs antigen closes the doors to work in civil service in the Republic of Poland. The problem is that many people can have/carry such an antigen but it doesn’t have to lead to viral hepatilis B-type disease. It is being estimated that the problem can affect 2 per cent of population. Because of outdated regulation some category of people is excluded from the full access to civil service.

Professor Zbigniew Hołda was the Vice-President of the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and a member of the Helsinki Committee in Poland. He was a distinguished scholar, attorney and defender of human rights. He specialized in criminal law and criminal enforcement law and worked as a professor of law at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Before 1989 he was active member of the „Solidarity” movement in Lublin. During the state of Martial Lawe he was in internment.

On 24 March 2009 the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights released a report from monitoring of the commercial divisions of all Polish courts. Monitoring was implemented in cooperation with law firm DLA Piper.

Marek Antoni Nowicki, former President of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, has been awarded the Edward J. Wende Award, while Professor Zbigniew Hołda, the Foundation’s current Vice-President, right, has been awarded the ‘Nagroda Tolerancji’ Award for promoting Tolerance, and the ‘Złoty Paragraf’ Advocate of the Year Award.

The Round Table Talks which marked the decline of the Polish People’s Republic began on 6th February and lasted till 5th April 1989. The event remains one of the most important and yet most controversial moments in the Polish post-war history.

When: Thursday, 5. March 2009 18.30 – 20.00 Where: Univeristy of Warsaw, Law and Administration Faculty, Room A3 (Warsaw, Lipowa Street) Host: Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights More info: www.hfhrpol.waw.pl/obserwatorium/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=332:freedom-of-speech-borders-do-celebrities-have-a-right-to-privacy&catid=47:aktualnosciprog&Itemid=66

It has been almost a year since the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk appointed Elzbieta Radziszewska for a Governmental Agent for Equal Legal Status. Her work, in particular lack of involvement in discrimination issues, has been strongly critized by NGOs.

Danuta Przywara, the President of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights sends a letter to Dmitri Medvedev, the president of the Russian Federation condemning the murder of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova

“Authorization in the Polish Media Law” was the title of a conference organized on 13 January 2009 at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw. Journalists, lawyers and academics discussed whether the new media law which introduces obligatory authorization of media stataments (e.g. in interviews) violates freedom of speech.