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The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, has announced much-needed reforms to the human rights body’s “reprisal mechanism” – launched in May 2017 to ensure “human rights defenders… never face retribution for their principled stance.”

The resolution aims to strengthen responses by the UN and States to put an end to reprisals for cooperating with the UN in the field of human rights. Human rights organisations sent the following joint letter to members of the Human Rights Council on 9 September 2019 – the opening day of HRC42.

HRHF raises hate speech and smear campaigns against women human rights defenders in Armenia, in its statement to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC41) on 26 June 2019. This follows the UN special rapporteur on freedom of association and assembly presenting his report on his November 2018 visit to Armenia.

Human Rights House Tbilisi, its member organisations, and a coalition of NGOs have issued a joint statement urging the  Georgian authorities to take all necessary measures to effectively investigate Afgan Mukhtarli’s alleged abduction and hold any offenders accountable.

International Civil Society Week 2019 (ICSW) was held in Belgrade from 8-12 April 2019. Events were co-organised by Civic Initiatives (member of Human Rights House Belgrade), CIVICUS: Civic Alliance for Citizen Participation, and Balkan Civil Society Development Network.

A key contributor to creating a human rights community in Belarus, Tatsiana Reviaka was one of the country’s first human rights defenders when she began her work in the newly-independent Belarus. Reviaka was the president of Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House between 2010 and 2018.

During follow-up discussions of Armenia’s universal periodic review in April 2019, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs Naira Zohrabyan gave a discriminatory speech relating to issues of transgender people. Some 20 Armenian Human Rights NGOs, including Human Rights House Yerevan, issued the following statement calling on the Armenian authorities to examine the incident and condemn the speech made by Zohrabyan.

Azerbaijani anti-corruption video blogger Mehman Huseynov has been released from prison, after serving a two-year sentence for defamation. This followed many years of repression by the authorities aimed at silencing him. On 26 December 2018, the Azerbaijani authorities put forward new criminal charges against him. These charges were dropped on 22 January 2019 following strong national and international protests.

Human rights, death, and post-rock music were among the items on the agenda across 15 events held during the “City of rights / City is right” human rights festival held in city of Pskov from 7-10 February 2019.