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On 12 May 2022 at the 34th Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights House Foundation repeated its condemnation of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, called for every assistance to be given to the Commission of Inquiry to carry out its work, and urged the United Nations to do its utmost to protect human rights defenders and journalists working in Ukraine.

On 16 May 2022, Human Rights House Foundation and several Ukrainian and international partners hosted “Moscow Mechanism report on Ukraine: Next steps for the OSCE,” a pre-event for OSCE delegations and stakeholders ahead of the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting.

Mikola Dziadok is an anarchist and blogger from the Belarusian district of Mogilev. He was previously held as a political prisoner between 2010 to 2015, when he wrote essays about daily life and the key elements of the Belarusian prison system. His essays formed the collection, The Colours of the Parallel World, which received PEN Belarus’ Francišak Aliachnovič Award in 2017.

The consequences of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine is the focus of the ongoing plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg this week. Ahead of the urgent procedure debate on “Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine: ensuring accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law” on Thursday, 28 April 2022, Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF) urges PACE to call for additional support to human rights defenders in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus and to support the establishment of international accountability mechanisms for serious violations of human rights committed as part of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Today, the Minsk City Court will begin hearings in the trial against Viasna member Marfa Rabkova and volunteer Andrey Chapiuk. Both are being prosecuted on politically motivated charges and face up to 20 years and eight years of imprisonment respectively. The proceedings are taking place as Viasna’s 26th anniversary approaches, in an overwhelmingly repressive context in Belarus. The signatory organisations reiterate their utmost support for Viasna, and call for the immediate and unconditional release of all its members as well as all arbitrarily imprisoned human rights defenders in the country.

The renewed invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022 must be considered within the broader regional human rights crisis which encompasses Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and addressed accordingly by the international community.

At the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights House Foundation called on the Council to press the Russian authorities on the ongoing human rights crackdown, as well as to appoint a dedicated Special Rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation in the country. These calls were delivered in a joint statement alongside Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Human Rights Watch, and FIDH.

Human Rights House Foundation joins over 25 CSOs issuing a set of recommendations to strengthen the European Union’s annual rule of law report for 2022.

On 17 March 2022, Human Rights House Foundation delivered a statement at the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council calling for the Council to renew the mandate of the OHCHR examination of Belarus.