At approximately 3:15am on 20 December, following the 19 December Belarusian presidential election, special forces personnel raided the office of Human Rights Centre “Viasna” in central Minsk. At 3:45am, ten staff present were detained, including lawyers Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich, and taken to the police department of Pervomaisky district of  Minsk.  Special forces then carried out a search of the premises.

Viasna, together with Belarus Helsinki Committee, were jointly conducting the domestic election monitoring project “Human  Rights Defenders for Free Elections” and staff were in the process of analyzing data collected the previous day from 600 election observers across the country. 

Since 11 December in the two biggest Russian cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, thousands of football fans, members of nationalist groups and ordinary people, went out to the streets with the slogans "Moscow for Russians", "Russians ahead", "Your children will be responsible to what you did", "Kill!". This led to huge clashes with police. Reuters news agency quoted a witness as saying the injured included a number of passers-by, who appeared to be members of ethnic minorities from the Caucasus region, who were attacked by demonstrators. Two metro stations Teatralnaya and Okhotnyy Ryad of the city of Moscow were smashed.
Racially motivated attacks and murders were occuring the whole weekend and the information about more incidents is coming constantly.

In St. Petersburg on 8 December the first ‘32 May’ human rights film festival opened. It will run until 12 December. Each day of the festival will be dedicated to an important human rights issue.

As noted by St. Petersburg.ru, on the eve of the film festival the organizers - Youth Human Rights Group and the Russian Social Democratic Youth Union - expressed outrage at the attitude to the event of the Committee on Law, Order and Security of St. Petersburg City Hall.

Among the winners of the 2010 Moscow Helsinki Group awards are writer Viktor Shenderovich, Yury Shmidt, one of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, and Evgeniya Chirikova, leader of the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest.

As Kasparov.ru reports, Viktor Shenderovich received the award for defending human rights through culture and art.

Evgeniya Chirikova received her award for defending social rights and the interests of local communities.

Yury Shmidt was awarded for his historical contribution to the protection of human rights and the human rights movement.

Human rights defender Vadim Karastelev who has represented the interests of former police officer Aleksei Dymovsky, received an award for courage shown in defence of human rights.

Today at 15:00 as part of the film competition hosted by the ‘Profession: Journalist’ Film Festival, the film Love me, Please was shown, directed by Valery Balayan and dedicated to the journalist and anti-fascist Anastasia Baburova, slain by neo-Nazis on 19 January 2009.

The Committee of 19 January welcomes the decision of the organizing committee of the Festival to screen the film. We believe that this became possible thanks to the public statements of many civil society activists, anti-fascists, cultural figures and human rights defenders, who had been dismayed by the removal of the film from the Festival programme.

To: Dmitry Anatolievich Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, 103132 Moscow, Old Square, 4

Dear Dmitry Anatolievich!

Human rights defenders and civic activists have called on President Dmitry Medvedev to dismiss the prosecutor of the Khimki district and the heads of the district’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and FSB - officials who have done nothing to solve the crimes against Konstantin Fetisov and other civic activists in Khimki.
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Dear Mr. President:

The story of a Turkmenian dissident, Annadurdy Hadjiev, has taken an unexpected turn. The Kazakhstani authorities have been trying to prevent him from attending a review conference of OSCE in Astana by delaying issue of the visa (see the details at: http://www.memo.ru/eng/news/2010/11/24/2411101.html)

A court in Azerbaijan has freed jailed opposition blogger Emin Milli, one day after releasing fellow blogger Adnan Hajizada from prison.
Baku's Court of Appeal freed the two men early in a surprise decision that followed a worldwide campaign for their release.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Milli said he hoped his case would "lead to a better protection of human rights in Azerbaijan and will boost the confidence of our youth in its own strength."

The 6th session of the Council of Europe Forum for the Future of Democracy was held from 19th up to 21st of October in Yerevan (Armenia). The Forum was established by the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe in Warsaw in May 2005 with the aim “to strengthen democracy, political freedoms and citizens’ participation”. It is open to all member states and civil society, and is aimed at enabling the exchange of ideas, information and examples of best practices, as well as discussions on possible future action in the field of democracy. Forum is organized in close cooperation with the Parliamentary Assembly, Congress of Regional and Local Authorities, Venice Commission and other bodies of the Council of Europe.
This time the topic was “Perspectives 2020.