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In the past week, human rights in Crimea and the need to support Crimeans have been in focus at the United Nations – in Geneva and in New York.

The UN has set the stage to celebrate the essential role of human rights defenders in 2018, as a resolution highlighting their positive impact is adopted by the General Assembly’s committee working on human rights.

“The reform undertaken by the Government, presented as a cure, appears to be worse than the disease affecting the Polish judiciary” declared the UN expert on the independence of the judiciary, concluding his visit to Poland last week.

For the first time, a non-governmental organisation has arranged a thematic briefing of the Council of Europe’s (CoE’s) decision-making body. Three human rights defenders presented their experiences on the front line promoting human rights.

“If you are the ruling party and you have the absolute majority, you have to stick to the rule of law.”

The country must “put an end to systemic repression of human rights defenders and the media,” according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Poland has accepted many of the recommendations put forward as part of its human rights review at the United Nations. It remains to be seen whether it will implement them.

Azerbaijan’s record on arbitrary detention is being scrutinised by the United Nations, as cases of arbitrary detention continue in the country.

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has responded to the recent crackdown on peaceful protests by the Belarusian government, and to the multiple concerns raised by Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF) and its partners, by passing a stronger resolution with an increased majority from 2016 on Belarus which has also renewed the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus for a further year.