Today, on January 29, 2010, a court hearing of the case on Ivan Mikhailau - a parishioner of Messianic Jews community “New Testament” and the oldest son in a family with many children.

Ivan Mikhailau refuses military service upon his religious beliefs and demands assignment of civil (alternative) service to him, which goes along with provisions of Art. 57 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.

The executive committee of Soligorsk has accepted an illegal decision on exception from Soligorsk’s school one of leaders of "Young Front" Ivan Shila for "active public work". And, the administration of school opposed such decision.

On 27th of April, 2009, government and civil society experts from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine began a three-day meeting in Vilnius to discuss improving human rights education for young people.

Government and civil society experts from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine began a three-day meeting in Vilnius today to discuss improving human rights education for young people.

The meeting, organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) with Lithuania's Ministry of Education and Science, will examine achievements in the area of human rights education to identify good practices that can be replicated in other countries.

One of the biggest regional Human Rights centres in Russia may become “homeless” in some months to come.

Voronezh House of Human Rights – a union of regional and inter-regional human rights and civil organizations – was founded at the beginning of 2009 to strengthen the positions of the human rights organizations in the region, building dialogue with the authorities, joining the efforts in defending and promoting Human Rights.

This document was initiated by the Human Rights Watch, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Inter-regional Human Rights Association "Agora", the Youth Human Rights Movement and the Human Rights Resource Centre. The proposals of human rights defenders directed to the Ministry of Justice are the results of discussion at the "round table" which took
place on April 8th in the Independent Press Centre. The initiatives to change the NGO legislation concern establishment and registration, reporting and inspections of the Russian non-governmental organizations.

Police in the capital, Chisinau, took no action yesterday as the Chair of Amnesty International's branch in Moldova, Igor Grosu, and several other participants of a peaceful demonstration were injured.

"It is not the first time that the police in Moldova have failed to protect demonstrators from unidentified attackers, thus violating the right to freedom of expression," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

Interview with Mohammed Thamir -Assistant Director of programmes (ATHAR Center For Development) AND Ali Nais -Board member (ATHAR Center For Development)

Reporter: First of all, which are main issues Iraq has to deal with today?

Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina is the director of the Alternative Studies Center of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement. The Democratic Youth Movement was founded in 1994 in the city of Guantanamo, and works to denounce the violation of human rights. The movement is commited to defend freedom and justice in a peaceful and non-violent way.

Fight for freedom, fear of prison...

Prison is one of the main threats the Cuban human rights activists need to deal with.

Declaration on Building Georgian-Russian Civil Dialog

Download in English *.pdf

Download in English *.doc

On the 27th of June 2008 the regional conference «Civil actions against racism and xenophobia» took place in Kharkov.

The Conference's organizers were the Kharkov charity foundation «Social service for help», Youth Human Rights Movement Ukraine, Youth Human Rights Group-Kharkov and Civil Freedoms Centre (Kiev).

On April 8, the functional workshop of the World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD) was organized in Kyiv in the framework of the Fifth Assembly of the WMD, of which it is a youth wing.

The workshop, moderated by Anastasia Nikitina, head of the WYMD regional secretariat for Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS countries, brought together about 30 participants representing youth democracy groups and the organizations working with youth from all the parts of the world.

Narek Hovakimyan, a member of Armenia’s pro-democracy youth movement Hima, was attacked and beaten yesterday, June 25, 2008, in downtown Yerevan.

Narek, a 19-year old freshman at Yerevan State University, was approached by an unknown young man, as he was leaving school after classes at around 3:30pm, and was asked to “have a conversation” outside the campus.

Notwithstanding the hot sun thousands of people are going up to the Matenadaran square, shouting “Freedom”, “Free, independent Armenia”, etc.

The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in Azerbaijan.

Brief description of the situation
The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by a reliable source and Antenna International, member organisation of OMCT SOS-Torture network, that Mr. Emin Huseynov, director of the Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS), was subjected to severe beatings during his detention on 14 June 2008 in Baku.

June 14, in the "Alaturka" Cafe, an event organized by the "Che Guvera Fan Club" to mark the 80 birthday of Che Guvera and attended by a representative of the Cuban embassy was raided by police. Out of the approximately 25 people present, 20 were detained by police and taken to Nasimi District Police Department #22. Among those detained were IRFS Chairman Emin Huseynov and IRFS researchers Rasim Aliyev and Mirrehim Hasanov. The three had gone to conduct monitoring of the event.

“All human beings are born free and equal...”

Supported by a group of members of the Berlin branch of YHRM, a Russian team of the Youth Human Rights Movement managed to organise a number of public actions and meetings with partners concerning the common project “Volunteers of Human Rights” while visiting the German capital from the 20th to the 25th of May.