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In 2021, Human Rights House Foundation and the network of Human Rights Houses worked in partnership to meet human rights challenges across Europe from the Thames to the Caspian. Find out how we did this and continued our work together to advance human rights at home and abroad.

Human Rights House Foundation welcomes the unanimous adoption of two important resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) regarding the situation of political prisoners in the Russian Federation and the need to restore human rights and the rule of law in the North Caucasus. Both resolutions underscore the need for greater international attention to the domestic situation in Russia and the continued need of support for civil society.

The human rights crisis perpetrated by the Russian authorities is not limited to Russian territory. The crisis is spilling beyond Russia’s borders.

On the morning of 7 October 2021, 15 years after Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator in her apartment building where she lived in Moscow, a colleague and I laid flowers on the corner of Drammensveien in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is located.

It became known on November 11, 2021, that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation filed a lawsuit to wind up Memorial International for allegedly systematic violations of the law on “foreign agents”. The organization is accused of not labelling its materials with a reference to its “foreign agent” status.

The environment for human rights defenders and organisations in Russia is increasingly dire. In this report, Human Rights House Foundation outlines the impact of the sweeping crackdown and use of increasingly restrictive and repressive legislation in Russia on the work of Russian civil society domestically and internationally, providing recommendations to the international community and the Russian authorities.

When US President Joe Biden stood in the East Room of the White House on September 15 flanked by television screens with the images of Australian Prime Minister Morrison and British Prime Minister Johnson, a new geopolitical trend came into stark relief for European policymakers. As many analysts subsequently noted, the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, UK, and Australia underscored the fragility of European security, the need for greater emphasis on building strategic autonomy, and the fact that a strengthened European Union policy towards Russia, its biggest strategic competitor, is vital. Human rights must now play a central role in the design and implementation of an updated EU-Russia Strategic Policy.

On 29 September 2021, Human Rights House Foundation delivered a statement at the 48th session of the Human Rights Council on reprisals against civil soceity.

On 27 September 2021, Human Rights House Foundation delivered a statement at the 48th session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in Russia.