This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Paris, June 23, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Ukrainian journalist Vladislav Yesypenko and Belarusian journalist Ihar Karnei, who had been unjustly detained for years by Russia and Belarus, respectively.
Russia freed Yesypenko on June 20 after he served a five-year prison sentence on charges of possessing and transporting explosives, which he denied. Karnei, detained for nearly 2 years, was released along with 13 political prisoners, including opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski. The 14 were freed by Belarus on June 21 following a visit to Minsk by senior U.S. official Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general.
“CPJ celebrates that Vladislav Yesypenko and Ihar Karnei are now free and reunited with their families,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “The efforts and pressure of the international community must not stop here, as Russia and Belarus continue to hold dozens of journalists in connection with their work. They all should be released immediately.”
Russian Federal Security Service officers detained Yesypenko, a freelance correspondent for Krym.Realii, a Crimea-focused outlet run by U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in March 2021 in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea. He was initially sentenced to six years in prison, but the term was reduced by a year on appeal in August 2022.
Karnei, a former freelancer with RFE/RL, was detained in July 2023 and sentenced to three years in March 2024 on charges of participating in an extremist group — the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which had been the largest independent media association in the country until it was dissolved in 2021 and later labeled an extremist group. His sentence was extended by eight months in December 2024.
“RFE/RL extends its deepest gratitude to the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for working with us to ensure that Vlad’s unjust detention was not prolonged,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement.
Karnei and Yesypenko’s releases come after sustained international pressure, including from CPJ, and after Andrey Kuznechyk, another RFE/RL journalist, was freed from a Belarusian prison in February.
Belarus is Europe’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 31 behind bars as of December 1, 2024. Thirteen of the 30 journalists still detained by Russia are Ukrainian.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lauren Wolfe.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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© UNFPA
‘In 2024, we have witnessed extraordinary levels of hostility towards democracy, from rampant disinformation and information manipulation by foreign actors, to the silencing of media and human rights defenders, and a strong pushback against gender equality and diversity, undoing years of progress in many countries across the globe. Today, only 29% of the world’s population live in liberal democracies. At the heart of these challenges lies peace. Peace is not simply the absence of war. It is the active cultivation of justice, the protection of the most vulnerable, the realisation of all human rights and the commitment to dialogue and reconciliation.’
– High Representative, Kaja KallasThe publication of the EU’s Annual Human Rights Report takes place in the context of multiple and cascading crises, including war on the European continent and the resurgence of conflict in many other areas of the world. These developments underscore the strong links between peace, human rights and democracy. Climate change, digital transformation, and rising inequalities add to the growing human rights challenges worldwide.
The report follows the structure of the EU’s Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, particularly the EU’s work on protecting and empowering individuals, building resilient, inclusive and democratic societies, promoting a global system for human rights and democracy, harnessing opportunities and addressing challenges, and ensuring that the EU delivers by working with our partners.
The EU continues to support the strengthening of inclusive, representative and accountable institutions, and promoted a collaborative approach to democracy through the Team Europe Democracy initiative. The fight against information manipulation and interference also continues to be a priority through initiatives such as EUvsDisinfo. Over the past year, the European Endowment for Democracy has kept up its work on fostering democracy and working with free media and civil society in challenging circumstances in Belarus, and Ukraine among others. The EU has carried on supporting and empowering people on the frontlines of human rights advocacy.
While the global outlook is challenging, the EU is steadfastly pursuing deeper international cooperation and stronger early warning and prevention mechanisms. Efforts to ensure accountability for violations and abuses of human rights continue to be a key priority. Together with its partners, the EU is determined to protect the multilateral human rights system and uphold the central role of human rights and democracy in fostering peace, security and sustainable development.
- Follow the link to the archive of all EU Annual Reports on Human Rights and Democracy
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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Council of Europe’s Michael O’Flaherty urged leaders not to give in to populist rhetoric over migration
Europe’s most senior human rights official has said there is evidence of asylum seekers being forcibly expelled at EU borders, as he urged mainstream politicians not to concede to populists on migration.
The commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, told the Guardian he was concerned about the treatment of asylum seekers at the EU’s external borders in Poland and Greece, as he warned against a “securitisation response” that goes too far.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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CPJ’s 2024 imprisoned journalists’ data illustrates how arbitrary prison sentences handed down in connection with journalistic work can become a years-long nightmare. Globally, incarcerated journalists routinely face harsh conditions—including lack of access to medical care, food, hygiene products, and water—along with loss of vital emotional support because long, often expensive journeys make it difficult for family members or legal representatives to visit them. To help meet the crucial needs of these journalists, CPJ regularly provides prison support grants, one of many forms of financial support accessible through CPJ’s journalist assistance program.
As part of CPJ’s holistic support for imprisoned journalists, prison support grants can be used alongside ongoing advocacy on behalf of journalists behind bars, and reporting and documentation of their case or trial. In 2024, CPJ supported 58 journalists with prison support, making up just over 10% of all individual financial grants journalists received from CPJ that year. That is the highest percentage CPJ has provided in prison support grants since 2020, and the largest-ever number of prison support grants in a single year, reflecting both the near record number of imprisoned journalists globally, and the scale of their needs behind bars.
In 2024, prison support was holistically combined with legal support, medical support, and trauma support. A prison sentence can cause or exacerbate a journalist’s mental health or medical issues, which CPJ’s grants can help alleviate. Legal fees are often covered alongside a grant for prison support so journalists can appropriately fight cases against them. And highlighting the unjustly long prison sentences some journalists receive, CPJ has provided multiple prison support grants to individual journalists over several years.
In 2024, the country that had the greatest need for CPJ’s prison support grants was Belarus. One of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, Belarus held 31 in prison as of December 1, 2024, according to CPJ’s prison data. During the year, CPJ for the first time helped almost the entire population of imprisoned journalists in a single country by providing a prison support grant to nearly every imprisoned Belarusian journalist through a partnership with the Belarusian Journalists Association (BAJ). In total, 23 journalists received grants, which not only covered basic necessities such as medication and food in prison but also allowed families to send care packages to their loved ones. Crucially, these grants fostered a feeling of solidarity, according to BAJ. That made the journalists feel less alone as they fight for their freedom. Imprisoned journalists who also received prison support grants in other countries mirrored the world’s top jailers of journalists in 2024, including Myanmar, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, and Iran.
Although not every journalist included in CPJ’s prison census received financial assistance from CPJ—some do not require it, while for others it may be too dangerous to receive foreign money—CPJ’s prison support grants underscore the complex and often appalling conditions many journalists endure in incarceration.
CPJ also helped journalists once they were released from prison, supporting 15 journalists with post-prison support grants in 2024. These grants can help journalists put their lives back together and adjust to their newfound freedom.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lucy Westcott.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Here a few highlights for this year from UN and NGOs sources:
While commemorating the 76th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that “human rights are under assault”. “Whether economic, social, civic, cultural or political, when one right is undermined, all rights are undermined,” Guterres said in a post on X. “Let’s protect, defend and uphold all human rights for all people,” he added. In a video message, The UN secretary-general said “we must stand up for all rights — always.”
Achim Steiner UNDP Administrator added his voice:
..As we mark Human Rights Day 2024, we are reminded that human rights are not abstract ideals. They are vital tools for addressing these pressing challenges and advancing dignity and justice for all.
… the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) works to support human rights solutions that strengthen accountability, protect communities and foster peace, recovery, and stability. This includes partnering with National Human Rights Institutions, which often represent the frontline defenders of human rights. … Local initiatives also remain key. That includes women in Somalia who are being supported to lead peace efforts including assisting those facing violence, discrimination, and injustice. “I have resolved numerous local disputes…I feel motivated when I see I have been able to change people’s lives positively,” says Fatuma who led a local Peace Working Group.
As the accelerating climate emergency threatens the ability of current and future generations to enjoy their right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, UNDP is focusing on access to justice, working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and OHCHR to help communities claim their rights. …The private sector also has a pivotal role to play. UNDP supports the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights including to advance sustainable practices that protect the environment. Indeed, technology offers both risks and opportunities to advance human rights. The Global Digital Compact aims to create an inclusive, open, safe, and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights. Tech-enabled UNDP tools like iVerify and eMonitor+ deployed in over 25 countries to monitor and address false narratives and hate speech show the potential. It is now crucial to adopt a rights-based approach to technologies like A.I., addressing ethical challenges, protecting data, and tackling biases to mitigate risks today and unlock immense benefits for the generations to come. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/09/27/united-nations-adopts-ground-breaking-pact-for-the-future-to-transform-global-governance/]
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The NGO Index on Censorship spotlights four people standing up for human rights around the world:
Despite the declaration, all around the world human rights are being challenged, degraded and attacked. That is why this year, on Human Rights Day, we pay tribute to five human rights defenders who have worked tirelessly to defend people’s rights and have been persecuted as a result.
Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO at Index on Censorship said: “In this increasingly polarised and authoritarian world these people stand out as beacons of hope and light. It’s depressing to think that over 75 years since the Declaration, we still need a day like this but that should not detract from the bravery and fortitude of these people. May their example show us all how we can all better fight injustice.”
Marfa Rabkova (Belarus) Marfa Rabkova is a human rights defender who has been behind bars since 17 September 2020. She has long been targeted by the Belarusian authorities as a result of her civic activism. Marfa became head of the volunteer service at the Human Rights Centre Viasna in 2019. During the 2020 presidential election, she joined the “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” campaign, which registered over 1,500 election observers. When peaceful protests began to take place after the election, she helped document evidence of torture and violence against demonstrators. Marfa was indicted on a long list of charges, including inciting social hostility to the government and leading a criminal organisation. She was sentenced to 14 years and 9 months in prison in September 2022, after nearly two years of pre-trial detention. Index on Censorship calls for her immediate and unconditional release. See also:
https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/03/22/belarus-end-reprisals-against-human-rights-defenders/https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/12/human-rights-day-2024-a-tribute-to-human-rights-defenders/
https://www.undp.org/speeches/administrators-statement-human-rights-day-10-december-2024
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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Emily O’Sullivan, on 28 October 2024, published an elaborate piece for the Global Investigative Journalism Network
Threats against investigative journalists are widely documented. According to UNESCO’s Observatory of Killed Journalists, 1,718 journalists have been killed since 1993. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ latest prison census found the number of jailed journalists hit a near-record high, with 320 reporters behind bars at the time of the count last December. Yet a lesser-known story is the increasing targeting of the lawyers representing them.
“Behind all those cases against journalists who have become household names — like Evan Gershkovich, Maria Ressa, and José Rubén Zamora — there are the often unseen lawyers representing them and taking remarkable risks to defend them,” Carolina Henriquez-Schmitz, director of TrustLaw, said at Trust Conference 2024. “[Lawyers] themselves are becoming the targets of a whole range of attacks.”
In recent years, threats have escalated. Azerbaijani lawyer Elchin Sadigov, and his client, journalist Avaz Zeynalli, were detained in 2022 while officers searched their homes and offices and seized confidential case files. Vo An Don, a Vietnamese human rights lawyer who represented a dissident blogger was disbarred in 2018 and subsequently sought political asylum in the US. Dmitry Talantov, a lawyer who represented Russian investigative journalist Ivan Safronov in 2021, now himself faces up to 15 years in prison on a number of charges.
“It sends an unequivocal message, not just to the individual lawyer, but to the entire legal profession,” Henriquez-Schmitz said. “If you pursue these cases, we will go after you. The potential chilling effect cannot be understated.”
Human rights lawyer Vo An Don was disbarred and forced to seek political asylum in the US after the Vietnamese government targeted him for representing a dissident blogger. Image: Screenshot, Facebook
The Thomson Reuters Foundation, in partnership with the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights and Media Defence, conducted a first-of-its-kind review of individual cases of harassment or persecution of lawyers defending journalists. The recently published preliminary findings identified over 40 cases of lawyers being targeted in four ways: criminal and other suits; interference with their ability to represent their clients; targeting their ability to practice the profession; and threatened killing, physical harm, forced flight, or exile, and other similar persecution.
“The research has identified cases in Vietnam, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, Iran, Yemen, Tajikistan, Russia, China, and Hong Kong, to name a few. Unsurprisingly, many of these countries also happen to be among the world’s worst jailers of journalists,” Henriquez-Schmitz noted. “The damage greatly reverberates. Without lawyers, journalists are unable to adequately defend themselves against retaliatory charges, and citizens are likely left less informed on matters of public interest.”
José Carlos Zamora, chief communications and impact officer at Exile Content Studio and the son of Guatemalan investigative journalist José Rubén Zamora, joined the Trust Conference panel only a few days after his father’s release to house arrest. Previously, his father had spent more than 800 days in prison on charges of alleged money laundering. The elder Zamora founded elPeriódico, a now-defunct newspaper which specialized in government corruption investigations.
“It’s a great step forward, but it’s not the end of the process,” Zamora said of his father’s transition to house arrest. “These repressive regimes, everywhere from Russia, to the Philippines, to Hong Kong, to Venezuela and Nicaragua, use the same tactics. And you see them copy from each other’s punishments, and one of these tactics is attacking the legal defense. So they go after the lawyers, and the main goal is to leave the journalists defenseless.”
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, who founded the elPeriódico site that dug into the country’s political corruption, recently spent more than 800 days in prison on alleged money laundering charges. Image: Shutterstock
In all, 10 lawyers represented Zamora, and all of them were persecuted and eventually forced to abandon the case. Many of them did not appear to have access to the case file, and one lawyer, Christian Ulate, had to leave Guatemala after ongoing harassment and intimidation. The lawyers that took over the case after Ulate, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda, were detained, and Castañeda was sent to a maximum security prison. Lawyers Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa and Justino Brito Torres were also arrested.
“At that point, the only defense was the public legal defense. There were some great lawyers in the public legal defense, but unfortunately, they are also part of the system,” Zamora explained. “At one point, none of the lawyers could visit him in prison. So everything was done through us. They could rarely talk. The ones that could go did not want to visit him because it was dangerous for them.”In some countries, human rights attorney Caoilfhionn Gallagher said, even the act of talking to an international lawyer can put local lawyers at risk.
María Consuelo Porras has acted as Guatemala’s attorney general since 2018. In 2022, she was barred from entering the US due to involvement in significant corruption, and in 2023 she was named OCCRP’s Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption, for “brutally persecuting honest prosecutors, journalists, and activists,” the group wrote. “Porras and her kind are the new banal faces of evil.”
“[Porras] became the best tool to persecute opposition, critical voices,” Zamora said. “Because they use this special prosecutor’s office that is focused on organized crime […] it allows them to have you in pre-trial detention. That prosecutor’s office was intended to investigate and prosecute the heads of drug cartels and mob bosses. And now they use it to go after journalists.”
Irish-born attorney Caoilfhionn Gallagher specializes in international human rights and civil liberties at Doughty Street Chambers in London. Her cases often involve working closely with domestic lawyers around the world, in order to hold the state to account on the global stage. In some countries, Gallagher said, even the act of talking to an international lawyer can put local lawyers at risk.
“When I deal with cases involving Iran, for example, or Egypt, even engaging with an international lawyer, being privy to a complaint going to the United Nations, could result in [local lawyers] themselves being charged with a whole range of things, including national security-type offenses,” she noted. One particular example she gives of lawyer oppression is the Philippines, where, in total, 63 lawyers were killed during President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term, and 22 journalists. “So this is completely a tactic,” Gallagher warned. “You try to leave nobody able to speak truth to power.”
One of Gallagher’s clients is 76-year-old publisher, writer, and prominent pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai. A British national, Lai has been in solitary confinement in a maximum security Hong Kong prison for almost four years, on charges of breaching national security and colluding with foreign forces. His newspaper, Apple Daily — the most popular Chinese language paper in Hong Kong — supported pro-democracy protests in the region. He now faces life imprisonment.
“Being called an enemy of the people, hit pieces in Chinese state media, formal statements from the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities threatening to prosecute us,” Gallagher said, reflecting on the implications of representing Lai. “But as well as that, we get physical threats, rape threats, and dismemberment threats, and it’s targeted in a way which is designed to try to undermine you doing your job.”“We coordinate pro bono for human rights defenders, and what we realized was that standing next to every defender facing criminalization was a lawyer also at risk.” — Ginna Anderson, associate director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights
On a key day in Lai’s case, Gallagher will wake up to notifications that there has been an attempt to hack her bank account, as well as her personal and professional email addresses. “I will also wake up to a whole series of […] threats, including things relating to my kids,” she continued. “I had a really vile message last week about my teenage daughter, by name, and it’s unpleasant.”
Gallagher says that, despite attacks, she will continue to represent reporters. “You’re rattling the right cages,” she said. “It’s designed to try to stop you doing your job, and for me, it makes me think if they care this much about the lawyers for Jimmy Lai based in London, doing work in Geneva, New York, and Dublin, just think about how much they hate my clients. And to be honest, it makes me more determined to stick with it.”
Associate director of the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, Ginna Anderson, emphasized the lack of current research into the growing threats against lawyers defending journalists, citing it as a driving force behind their work. “We realized no one was really talking about it, and the data wasn’t being collected,” she explained. “We coordinate pro bono for human rights defenders, and what we realized was that standing next to every defender facing criminalization was a lawyer also at risk and asking for none of those resources for themselves.”
While networks often operate to support journalists who are being subjected to physical threats, cyberattacks, and forced exile, Anderson emphasized the ad hoc nature of the support available to lawyers — in part due to the recent escalation in cases. “There’s not one place we go and coordinate,” she said. “It’s a lot of personal relationships and knowing who has capacity, and quite frankly there’s very little capacity in any of these places to really deal with the scale of the problem.”
“Just like journalists don’t want to be part of the story, lawyers don’t, and many other trends are mirrored,” she continued. “One thing that struck me […] was this perception that safety of journalist networks are so much better connected and resourced than anything to support lawyers. That terrified me because I think we all think that there’s not enough being done for the safety of journalists.”
Attacks aren’t restricted to individual lawyers. In Belarus, for example, more than 140 lawyers have lost their licenses since 2020, according to research by Human Rights Watch, the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers, and the Right to Defence Project. They found a pattern of arbitrary and politically motivated license revocation, occurring for the first time in contemporary Belarusian history.
“Lawyers are often trusted voices, just like some legacy media establishments,” Anderson said. “They’re trusted voices on the rule of law. They’re trusted voices on the Constitution. And when you disparage them and smear them, and in some cases make it criminal for them to talk about these issues, you have silenced one of the most important voices.”
Defending Lawyers Protecting Journalists
As attacks on lawyers rise, the panel reflected on the ways in which those representing journalists can defend themselves. Increasing knowledge of cybersecurity — which may not have previously been a priority for lawyers — is essential, Gallagher said. “In the last number of years working on cases against Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, I’ve been very surprised by [top-ranked multinational law firms] trying to send you something on Google Docs,” she continued. “The media organization and the journalists will have really good protocols, but then when they get into some kind of difficulty, they may instruct an external lawyer who simply doesn’t.”
Law societies and governments also have a responsibility to take such threats more seriously, Gallagher says, reflecting on the case of Pat Finucane, a Northern Irish human rights lawyer who was murdered in his home in 1989. The UK government only announced a public inquiry into his death in 2024, 35 years later. “That is a home example of these issues simply not being taken seriously enough,” she said. “I can tell you basic preventative strategies were simply not implemented here in Britain.”
Another issue is a lack of psychological support for lawyers, Anderson says. “I’ve been surprised how often a conversation about digital security becomes the place where a lawyer may talk about what’s weighing on their mind,” she continued. “[They’re] not saying, ‘I would like to talk about my psychosocial needs’, but they start with a practical need around digital security, and it finds its way into the things that are weighing on them.”
As Zamora reflected on the future for his father, he seemed hopeful. “He’s excited. He’s very happy. He feels like he’s at a spa after spending those 813 days in an isolation cell,” he said. “We are going to continue fighting these processes. They are really spurious charges, and we are going to fight until the end to demonstrate that everything is false.”
While he says that his father’s trial has exposed the worst in humanity, through Guatemala’s political persecution of those standing up for democracy and freedom, Zamora also believes that it has brought out the best in humanity, too. “I feel that’s everybody in this room,” he concluded. “You care about these issues, you are doing the work, and you can continue to do the work to keep these cases alive.”
Emily O’Sullivan is an editorial assistant at GIJN. She has worked as an investigative researcher for BBC Panorama, and an assistant producer for BBC Newsnight. She has an MA in Investigative Journalism from City, University of London.
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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New York, October 25, 2024— Belarusian authorities should immediately release Belarusian journalist Ihar Ilyash, who announced his detention while possibly under duress in a video published October 22 on a pro-government Telegram channel, and ensure that no journalists are jailed because of their work, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday.
“Ihar Ilyash’s detention is yet another example of the ruthlessness of Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime. Belarusian authorities will do anything to demean and harass members of the press,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “Authorities should drop any charges filed against Ihar Ilyash, release him immediately, and ensure that no journalists are jailed for their work.”
On October 22, the pro-government Telegram channel Kniga GU “BAZA” published a video in which Ilyash said that he worked with banned Poland-based independent broadcaster Belsat TV and gave interviews to media outlets that Belarus has labeled “extremist groups.”
“Because of this, I’m detained,” said Ilyash.
The Telegram channel claimed in a caption accompanying the video that Ilyash “was involved in promoting extremist groups and collecting information for foreign intelligence services” with his wife, Belsat TV channel journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva. She has been detained since November 2020, when she was arrested while reporting live in Minsk, the capital, on mass protests demanding President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s resignation.
Authorities labeled Belsat TV “extremist” in July 2021.
CPJ was unable to determine the date and the location of Ilyash’s detention nor the precise charges brought against him. Authorities have previously detained Ilyash multiple times in connection with his work.
CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency, for comment but did not receive any response.
Belarus is the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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New York, September 23, 2024—Belarusian authorities should disclose their reason for detaining journalist Yauhen Nikalayevich ahead of his September 26 trial on charges of violating public order in the southwestern city of Pinsk, and ensure that no journalists are jailed because of their work, said the Committee to Protect Journalist on Monday.
“Journalist Yauhen Nikalayevich’s detention, despite a spate of recent pardons by President Aleksandr Lukashenko, underscores Belarus’ fractured prison system as Europe’s worst jailer of journalists,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Belarusian authorities should make the reason for Nikalayevich’s charges known or release him immediately.”
Nikalayevich, a former video reporter with independent news website Media Polesye, was arrested and served a 10-day prison sentence in November 2020 on charges of “participating in an unsanctioned event” following his coverage of protests in Pinsk calling for President Lukashenko to resign.
Nikalayevich left Belarus and journalism after serving his sentence, his former outlet reported, adding that he returned to the country in early 2024.
The new charges against Nikalayevich are “most likely” related to his coverage of the 2020 protests, a representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, an advocacy and trade group operating from exile, told CPJ under condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. There is no information on when the journalist was detained.
If convicted, Nikalayevich faces up to four years in jail, according to the Belarusian Criminal Code.
CPJ is also investigating the September 19 detention of photographer Aivar Udrys in the western city of Hlybokaye. The outcome of his Thursday hearing is unknown. CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency, for comment on the two detentions but did not receive any response.
Belarus was the world’s fifth worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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New York, September 17, 2024—Belarusian filmmaker Andrey Gnyot is stuck in a legal limbo after a Serbian appeals court announced on September 11 that it had sent his extradition case to the Belgrade Higher Court for a third review.
Gnyot, who is currently under house arrest, has been held by Serbian authorities since October 2023 and could face seven years in jail if extradited to Belarus and convicted on tax evasion charges.
Gnyot told CPJ on September 12 that the “most dangerous thing” about waiting for the hearing, which he said was probably one month away, was it would give President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s authoritarian government more time to “make up any number of new fake criminal cases against me” to persuade Serbia to grant its extradition request.“If Serbia extradites Andrey Gnyot to Belarus, it could set a dangerous precedent for Belarusian authorities’ transnational repression of journalists and profoundly undermine Serbia’s aspirations to join the European Union,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “If Serbia is serious about being an EU candidate country, it must respect the bloc’s values of democracy and human rights. Serbian authorities must end these baseless judicial proceedings and free Gnyot immediately.”
Serbia applied for EU membership in 2009, but European Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said in May that the country still needed to proceed with democratic reforms.
Harassment beyond Belarusian borders
Belarusian authorities cracked down on independent media following 2020 protests against Lukashenko’s disputed reelection. As hundreds of journalists have fled into exile, the government has stepped up its efforts to reach beyond its borders to harass them. This includes stripping citizenship from exiles convicted on anti-state charges, banning citizens from renewing their passports abroad, initiating criminal proceedings against several exiled journalists, and searching the Belarusian homes of others who have left the country. CPJ is working to determine whether the prosecutions are connected to the journalists’ work.
In 2021, Belarusian authorities arrested journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend after diverting a commercial Ryanair flight to the capital Minsk. In 2023, Pratasevich was given an eight-year sentence on charges that included organizing protests and insulting the president, while exiled former colleagues from his Telegram channel NEXTA, Stsypan Putsila and Yan Rudzik, were given sentences in absentia of 20 and 19 years respectively. Pratasevich was later pardoned.
During the 2020 protests, Gnyot worked with independent news outlets, including Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and co-founded SOS BY, an independent sports association that influenced the cancellation of the 2021 Hockey World Cup in Belarus. Belarusian authorities later designated both organizations as “extremist.”
‘I’m not giving up’
Serbian authorities arrested Gnyot upon his arrival in the country on October 30, 2023, based on an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the Belarusian Interpol bureau. After seven months in prison, he was transferred to house arrest in June. He denies the charges.
“No one knows for how long I am stuck in this ‘terminal’ between the East and the West and for how much [longer] I will have enough moral, material, and physical resources. I’m not giving up. But, of course, I’m angry,” Gnyot told CPJ. “I am left in detention, without a job, without means of livelihood, with one hour out of the house, without medical care.”
Belarus is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, often using “extremism” laws to incarcerate journalists in retaliation for covering the 2020 protests. At least 28 journalists were behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census on December 1, 2023. (Gnyot was not listed as being held in Serbia at the time due to a lack of information about the connection between Gnyot’s detention and his journalism.)
A 2023 U.S. State Department report found that prisoners in Belarus jails face harsh conditions, including food and heating shortages, gross overcrowding, and lack of access to basic or emergency medical care.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Ekecheiria, also known as the “Olympic Truce,” is a quaint notion dating to Ancient Greece, when three kings prone to warring against each other – Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta – concluded a treaty permitting the safe passage of all athletes and spectators from the relevant city-states for the duration of the Olympic Games. The truce had a certain logic to it, given that many of those granted safe passage would have been serving soldiers or soldiers in waiting.
In 1894, the founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Pierre de Coubertin, fantasised about the Games as a peace promoting endeavour which, when read closely, suggests the sublimation of humanity’s warring instincts. Instead of killing each other, humans could compete in stadia and on the sporting tracks, adoring and admiring physical prowess. “Wars break out because nations misunderstand each other. We shall have no peace until the prejudices which now separate the different races shall have been outlived. To attain this end, what better means than to bring the youth of all countries periodically together for amicable trials of muscular strength and agility.”
Panting over torsos, sinews and muscles, de Coubertin gushingly wrote his “Ode to Sport” in 1912. Sport was peace, forging “happy bonds between the peoples by drawing them together in reverence for strength which is controlled, organised and self-disciplined.” It was through the young that respect would be learned for “one another,” thereby ensuring that “the diversity of national traits becomes a source of generous and peaceful emulation.” Sport was also other things: justice, daring, honour, joy and, in the true spirit of eugenic inspiration, the means to achieve “a more perfect race, blasting the seeds of sickness”. Athletes would, accordingly, “wish to see growing about him brisk and sturdy sons to follow him in the arena and [in] turn bear off joyous laurels.”
The Olympic Charter also states that Olympism’s central goal “is to place at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
In the 1990s, the IOC thought it prudent to revive the concept of such a truce. As the organisation explains, this was done “with a view to protecting, as far as possible, the interests of the athletes and sport in general, and to harness the power of sport to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation more broadly.” In 2000, the IOC founded the International Olympic Truce Foundation, adopting the dove as a signature symbol of the Games. By the London Olympics of 2012, the 193 nations present had signed onto an Olympic Truce.
From such lofty summits, hypocrisy and inconsistency will follow. The IOC, hardly the finest practitioner of fine principle, has been prone to injudicious standards, rampant corruption and tyrannical stupidity. The IOC recommendation to ban Russian athletes took all but four days after the attack on Ukraine in February 2022 on the premise that Russia had breached the sacred compact of sporting peace. In the mix, Belarus, designated as arch collaborator with Russian war aims, was also added.
During the 11th Olympic Summit held on December 9, 2022, the IOC Executive Board noted that the Olympic Games would not “address all the political and social challenges in the world. This is the realm of politics.” Having advocated that platitudinous, false distinction, the Executive Board could still claim that the Games “can set an example for a world where everyone respects the same rules as one another.”
The IOC did make one grudging concession: Russian and Belarusian athletes could compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs) subject to meeting eligibility requirements determined by the Individual Neutral Athlete Eligibility Review Panel. Each athlete’s participation was subject to respecting the Olympic Charter, with special reference to “the peace mission of the Olympic Movement”.
These statements and qualifications, intentionally or otherwise, are resoundingly delusional. The Games are events of pompous political significance, with athletes often being administrative and symbolic extensions of the nation stage they represent. Authoritarian regimes have gloatingly celebrated hosting them. They have been staging grounds for violence, notably in the killing of 12 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.
They have also been boycotted for very political reasons. The United States did so in 1980 for the Moscow Games, along with 64 other nations, in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The Soviet Union returned the favour at the Los Angeles Olympics held in 1984, giving President Ronald Reagan a chance, in an election year, to speak of the “winning” American ideal and “a new patriotism spreading across our country.”
In keeping with the erratic nature of such a spirit, it was appropriately hypocritical and distasteful of IOC practice to permit the Israeli athletic contingent numbering 88 athletes to compete at the Paris Games. All this, as slaughter and starvation continued to take place in Gaza (at the time, the Palestinian death toll lay somewhere in the order of 39,000).
Permitting Israel’s participation prompted Jules Boykoff, an academic of keen interest in the Games, to suggest that “the situation is more and more resembling the situation that led the IOC forcing Russia to participate as neutral athletes.” The body’s “approach to ignore the situation places its selective morality on full display and throws into question the group’s commitment to the high-minded ideals it claims to abide.”
These ideals remain just that, a cover that otherwise permits political realities to flourish. Predictably, the Paris spectacle, both before and after, was always going to feature the tang and sting of resentment. Far from being apolitical exponents of their craft, various members of the Israeli Olympic team have been more than forthcoming in defending the warring cause. Judokas Timna Nelson-Levy and Maya Goshen have been vocal in their defence of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Palestinian participants have also done their bit. During the opening ceremony, boxer Wasim Abusal wore a shirt showing children being bombed, telling Agence France-Presse that these were “children who are martyred and die under the rubble, children whose parents are martyred and are left alone without food and water.” Such views are not permitted for Russian or Belarusian athletes, who must compete under the deceptive flag of neutrality.
The organisers of the Paris Games also found it difficult to keep a lid on an occasion supposedly free of political attributes. The Israel-Paraguay football march was marked by scornful boos as the Israeli national anthem was performed. Reports also note that at least one banner featured “GENOCIDE OLYMPICS”. Three Israeli athletes also received death threats, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
It’s such instances of political oddities that permit the following suggestion: make all athletes truly amateurish by abolishing their associations with countries. Most nation states, soldered and cemented compacts of hatred, based upon territory often pinched from previous occupants, are such a nuisance in this regard. If Olympism is to make sense, and if the ravings of the physique obsessed de Coubertin are to be given shape, why not get rid of the State altogether, thereby making all participants neutral, if only for a few weeks?
The post The Distasteful Nonsense of Olympism first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Are you an artist passionate about human rights and social justice? We’re looking for talented creators to develop original art pieces for our 2024 Write for Rights campaign. This is your chance to use your creative skills to fight injustice and show your solidarity with people who are advocating for change.
What We’re Looking For
We are looking for a wide range of artistic expressions, including but not limited to:
- Graphic design artwork
- Videos of spoken-word art
- Musical pieces (vocal, instrumental…etc.)
- Videos of dances, skits
- Animations
- Paintings
- Comic Illustrations
Project Details
Objective: Create an original art piece representing a specific Write for Rights case.
Compensation: TBD
Timeline: September 15, 2024 – October 15, 2024
Submission Deadline: August 30th, 2024How to Apply
Submit your application including:
- A brief introduction of yourself, your artistic background and your interest in social justice
- A short proposal outlining:
- Two Write for Rights cases you are interested in working on and why
- A short description of your artistic vision for the piece
- A portfolio or samples of your previous work
Send your applications to writeforrights@amnesty.ca by August 30th, 2024.
Don’t miss this chance to make a global impact with your art. Join us in advocating for human rights through powerful, creative expression.
Write for Rights Cases
Manahel al-Otaibi (Saudi Arabia)
Manahel al-Otaibi is a fitness instructor and a brave outspoken advocate for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. In November 2022, she was arrested after posting to Snapchat photos of herself at a shopping mall. In the photos, she was not wearing the traditional long-sleeved loose robe known as an abaya. Manahel has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Wet’suwet’en Nation Land Defenders (Canada)
The Wetʼsuwetʼen Nation are deeply connected to their ancestral lands, but this is threatened by the construction of a fossil fuel pipeline through their territory. Their Hereditary Chiefs did not consent to this construction. Land defenders have been charged for blocking pipeline construction sites, even though these sites are on their ancestral lands. They could face prison and a criminal record.
Maryia Kalesnikava (Belarus)
Political activist Maryia Kalesnikava dared to challenge the repressive Belarus government. On 7 September 2020, Maryia was abducted by the Belarus authorities. She was taken to the border where she resisted deportation by tearing up her passport. She was detained and later sentenced to 11 years in prison on false charges. Maryia’s family haven’t heard from her for more than a year.
Floraine Irangabiye (Burundi)
Floriane Irangabiye is a mother, journalist, and human rights defender from Burundi. In 2010 she relocated to Rwanda where she co-founded a radio station for exiled Burundian voices. In August 2022 she was arrested while visiting family in Burundi. In January 2023 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “undermining the integrity of the national territory”, all for criticizing Burundi’s human rights record.
Kyung Seok Park (South Korea)
Kyung Seok Park is a dedicated disability rights activist. Holding peaceful protests on Seoul’s public transport systems, Kyung Seok Park has drawn attention to how hard it is for people with disabilities to easily access trains and subways safely – denying them the ability to travel to work, school, or to live independently. Kyung Seok Park’s activism has been met with police abuse, public smear campaigns and punitive litigation.
https://amnesty.ca/activism-guide/appy-now-w4rs-art/
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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New York, June 20, 2024—Belarusian authorities must immediately disclose the reasons behind charges against journalist Alena Tsimashchuk, who was sentenced to five years imprisonment, and ensure that no members of the press are jailed for their work.
On June 3, a court in the southwestern city of Brest convicted Tsimashchuk of discrediting Belarus, “incitement to racial, national, religious, or other social hostility or discord,” and participating in an extremist formation, according to the banned human rights group Viasna, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile. The court sentenced Tsimashchuk to five years in jail and a fine of 46,000 Belarusian rubles (US$14,000), those sources said. CPJ was unable to determine whether Tsimashchuk plans to appeal her sentence.
There is no information regarding the grounds for the charges against Tsimashchuk, those reports said. Her trial started on May 31, BAJ reported. She is currently held in pretrial detention center No. 7 in Brest, according to Viasna.
“In just four days and two hearings, a Belarusian court sentenced journalist Alena Tsimashchuk to five years’ imprisonment on unknown grounds,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately disclose the reasons behind the charges brought against Tsimashchuk and ensure that no journalists are jailed for their work.”
Tsimashchuk is a freelance journalist who has worked with several local outlets in the Brest region, according to BAJ. A BAJ representative who spoke to CPJ anonymously, citing fear of reprisal, said that the date of Tsimashchuk’s detention was unknown, but that it most likely occurred in late 2023.
CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee and the Brest Regional Court for comment on Tsimashchuk’s case but did not receive any response.
Belarus was the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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New York, June 18, 2024—A Serbian appeals court must not indulge a request from Belarusian authorities and should overturn a recent decision to extradite journalist Andrey Gnyot to Belarus, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
On May 31, the Higher Court in Belgrade ruled to extradite Gnyot to Belarus for tax evasion, according to media reports and Gnyot, who spoke to CPJ. The decision was made public and communicated to the journalist on June 13.
“They want to extradite me, not right now, but this is a very bad decision,” Gnyot told Belarusian independent news outlet Zerkalo. A tax evasion charge carries up to seven years of imprisonment, according to the Belarusian criminal code.
“The decision to extradite Belarusian journalist Andrey Gnyot to comply with a request from Aleksandr Lukashenko’s repressive regime is not only absurd and unfounded, it also deeply undermines the country’s aspirations to join the European Union,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “The Serbian appeals court should overturn the recent ruling to extradite journalist Andrey Gnyot. Belarusian authorities, on their end, should stop their attempts to instrumentalize Interpol to transnationally repress dissenting voices.”
Gnyot, a filmmaker, collaborated with a range of independent news outlets, including Radio Svaboda, during the 2020 protests demanding President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s resignation after the country’s election. In December 2021, the Belarusian authorities labeled the outlet an “extremist” group.
Serbian authorities arrested Gnyot in Belgrade, the capital, on October 30, 2023, based on an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the Belarusian Interpol bureau. He remained in a Belgrade prison until June 5, when he was transferred to house arrest, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile, and a report by Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Gnyot told CPJ that he filed two appeals on June 17, one from himself and one from his lawyers. “I work on my defense every day because a lot of time was lost while I was in prison. So it is not possible for me to relax. Moreover, I even eat and sleep less because I don’t have time. But the end justifies the means — I am fighting to save my life,” he said.
“Everything I provided to the court was ignored,” he added. “We have a saying that ‘hope dies last,’ and of course I expect that the appellate court will correct this mistake, because to do so, you just need to study the evidence provided and not ignore it. It scares me to think that a judge making a decision would so easily send a man to his death.”
Belarusian authorities charged Gnyot with tax evasion for allegedly failing to pay around 300,000 euros (US$323,600) in taxes between 2012 and 2018, according to media reports and a friend of Gnyot, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. Gnyot denies the tax evasion accusations, and his defense considers his persecution as politically motivated.
Gnyot is also one of the founders of SOS BY, an independent association of Belarusian sportspeople that influenced the cancellation of the 2021 Hockey World Cup in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities later designated SOS BY an “extremist” group.
If Gnyot is extradited to Belarus, he could potentially face additional charges for creating or participating in an extremist group, which carries up to 10 years in prison.
Gnyot’s health deteriorated significantly in prison, he said in a May 11 letter reviewed by CPJ. As of June 18, he still had not managed to get medical care while under house arrest, he told CPJ.
“Unfortunately, I have never received any medical help, and I can’t arrange it myself: one hour of freedom to leave my apartment to get to the doctor and get medical help is just physically not enough for me,” he said. “Psychologically I feel good, because I see a huge support and solidarity of people.”
CPJ emailed the Higher Court and the Court of Appeal in Belgrade for comment on Gnyot’s case but did not receive any response.
Separately, on June 8, Serbian border police in Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport banned Russian-Israeli freelance journalist Roman Perl from entering the country, according to media reports.
“They never explained anything to me at the airport but just gave me a paper stating that my entry into Serbia would pose a security risk,” Perl, who works with Current Time TV, a project affiliated with RFE/RL and U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America, told Serbian broadcaster N1TV.
The journalist believes the ban to be connected to his 2023 brief detention in Serbia, after a man he was interviewing for a documentary about Serbia and Russia’s war in Ukraine unfurled a Ukrainian flag near the Russian Embassy. Russian authorities labeled Perl a “foreign agent” in October 2021.
Belarus was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census. Serbia had no journalists behind bars at the time, except for Gnyot, who was not included in the census due to a lack of information about his journalism.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Group who crossed from Belarus included sister of one of the accused in case highlighting Latvia’s harsh migration laws
Two Dutch people are facing prison sentences of up to eight years in Latvia over what they say was an act of compassion to help a group of refugees reach safety, including the sister of one of the pair.
The case has put Latvia’s harsh laws on migration under the spotlight and comes as a local rights activist also faces jail time, for helping refugees who crossed into Latvia via the country’s border with neighbouring Belarus.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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New York, May 30, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a Thursday report by rights group Access Now and research organization Citizen Lab alleging that Pegasus spyware was used to surveil at least five journalists.
The report, “Exiled, then spied on: Civil society in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland targeted with Pegasus spyware,” identified at least seven people whose devices were targeted between 2020 and 2023 by Pegasus, a form of zero-click spyware produced by the Israeli company NSO Group.
“Today’s report raises major concerns about the use of spyware against journalists and shows once again that the press is among the main targets of Pegasus spyware,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Journalists should not be spied on, and these new attacks mean that governments urgently need to implement an immediate moratorium on the development, sale, and use of spyware technologies.”
The targets included four named journalists and one Lithuania-based exiled Russian journalist whose device was targeted in June 2023 around an event in Riga, Latvia, and who requested to remain anonymous. The report describes the following attacks on the four named journalists:
- Latvia-based exiled Russian journalist Maria Epifanova’s device was infected in August 2020, “the earliest known use of Pegasus to target Russian civil society,” the report said. Epifanova is the CEO of independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, which Russian authorities outlawed as “undesirable” in June 2023. The report said the infection occurred when Epifanova was chief editor of Novaya Gazeta Baltija — which covers Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — and “shortly after she received accreditation to attend exiled Belarusian democratic opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s first press conference in Vilnius,” the capital of Lithuania.
“Regardless of who is behind this attack, invasion in private life is unacceptable. I am now working with a lawyer to decide on the next steps and will do my best to bring more light onto my own case and cases of my colleagues,” Epifanova told CPJ.
- Latvia-based exiled Israeli-Russian journalist Evgeniy Erlich’s device was infected in late November 2022 while on vacation in Austria, the report said. Erlich, an independent producer, has worked with various media outlets, including broadcaster Current Time TV and Votvot, an on-demand Russian-language streaming platform. Both outlets are affiliated with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Erlich told CPJ that “we will most likely never know” who ordered the attacks.
- Latvian journalist Evgeniy Pavlov’s device was targeted in November 2022 and April 2023. Pavlov, a former correspondent with Novaya Gazeta Baltija and a freelance journalist for Current Time TV’s “Baltija” program, told CPJ that he was in Latvia at both times. Access Now was unable to confirm if the attempts were successful.
“If the intelligence services of any country can interfere with the activities of journalists in this way, it poses a very great threat to free and safe journalism. And to free speech in general,” Pavlov told CPJ.
- Poland-based exiled Belarusian journalist Natalya Radina’s device was infected twice in December 2022 and once in January 2023, the report said. The first infection occurred the day after the journalist participated in an anti-war conference in Vilnius. Radina is the editor-in-chief of independent news website Charter 97 and a CPJ 2011 International Press Freedom Awardee.
“My phone was illegally tapped in Belarus, where I was persecuted for political reasons, prosecuted, and imprisoned by the KGB [Belarusian national security service],” Radina told CPJ. “I know that…my absolutely legal journalistic activity can be of interest only to Belarusian and Russian special services, and I am only afraid of the possible cooperation in this matter of the present operators, whoever they are, with the KGB or the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service].”
In an email response to CPJ, the vice president of global communications for NSO group, Gil Lainer, maintained that the organization complies with all laws and regulations, emphasizing that it only sells to vetted intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and to allies of Israel and the United States. Lainer added that NSO group investigates all credible claims of misuse, adding that a number of investigations resulted in the suspension or termination of accounts.
A 2022 CPJ special report noted that the development of high-tech “zero-click” spyware like Pegasus — the kind that takes over a phone without a user’s knowledge or interaction — poses an existential crisis for journalism and the future of press freedom around the world. The report included CPJ’s recommendations to protect journalists and their sources from the abuse of the technology and called for an immediate moratorium on exporting this technology to countries with poor human rights records.
CPJ has also joined other rights groups in calling for immediate action to stop spyware threatening press freedom.
In September 2023, an investigation released by Access Now and Citizen Lab revealed that the phone of Galina Timchenko, the head of independent Russian-language news website Meduza, who has lived in Latvia since 2014, was infected by Pegasus while she was in Germany in February 2023.
The next day, Epifanova, Pavlov, and Erlich said Apple had notified them that their phone could have been targeted by hacker attacks.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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On 27 May 2024 Human Rights Watch published a major report on the politically motivated crackdown on Human Rights Lawyers in Belarus.
Summary: In August 2020, peaceful protests in Belarus began with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in the streets of Minsk and across Belarus following the contested electoral victory of Aliaksandr Lukashenka, who had already served as president for more than 26 years. Belarusian authorities responded with unprecedented brutality, using excessive force, arbitrarily detaining thousands of peaceful protesters, and subjecting them to ill-treatment and torture in detention before conveyor-belt administrative and criminal trials.
Since then, Belarusian authorities have unrolled widespread and systematic repression of any form of dissent. Government critics have been forced into exile or thrown behind bars on politically motivated charges. The number of political prisoners swelled and at time of publication exceeded 1300, according to Human Rights Center “Viasna,” the prominent Belarusian human rights organization. The term “political prisoner,” for the purpose of this report, includes anyone detained, imprisoned or otherwise deprived of their liberty by Belarusian authorities for peacefully exercising their rights and freedoms or defending human rights and fundamental freedoms.
February 2023 and March 2024 reports of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that some violations committed by Belarusian authorities in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election and in its aftermath “may amount to crimes against humanity” including the “crime of persecution.” [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/07/12/state-of-human-rights-in-belarus-called-catastrophic-at-the-un/]
In the face of these grave and widespread rights violations, some lawyers stepped up to represent clients in politically motivated cases. ..This report examines the Lukashenka government’s retribution against lawyers who represent government critics and its nearly complete takeover of the legal profession in Belarus. The authorities have subjected lawyers in politically motivated cases, as well as lawyers who criticize state abuses, to harassment, arbitrary revocation of their licenses, detention and administrative charges, and politically motivated criminal prosecution. Behind bars, lawyers along with other politically-targeted detainees and convicts, experience retaliatory ill-treatment. The authorities have left no space for earnest and efficient discharge of lawyers’ duties in politically motivated cases. At the time of writing, very few lawyers, if any, were willing to take on such cases, which has severely undermined the right to a fair trial, due process, and access to remedy in Belarus.
The report shows that while governmental crackdown on lawyers in times of political unrest in Belarus is not new, the scale and severity of this wave of repression is unprecedented. For the first time in the history of modern Belarus, lawyers have become political prisoners themselves for their work on behalf of clients.
At the time of writing, six lawyers—Maksim Znak, Aliaksandr Danilevich, Vital Brahinets, Anastasiya Lazarenka, Yuliya Yurhilevich, and Aliaksei Barodka—were serving sentences on politically motivated charges ranging from six to ten years. Such charges included providing legal aid to political opposition figures and activists or giving interviews to and sharing information with independent media labelled “extremist” by the authorities. [see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/09/10/two-lawyers-from-belarus-share-lawyers-for-lawyers-award-2021/]
In addition to politically motivated prosecution, lawyers also have faced politically motivated disbarment. Since 2020, more than 140 lawyers have been disbarred by the regional bar associations or faced arbitrary license revocation by the Justice Ministry following decisions of its Qualification Commission because they supposedly breeched some regulations or were not sufficiently qualified to work as lawyers. These grounds are often easily exposed as flimsy pretexts: on average, those “unqualified” lawyers had more than 13.5 years of experience; many had successfully worked in the legal field for two to three decades, or more, and some of them were previously recognized by bar associations for their excellence…
The report also examines how the Belarusian government has established all-encompassing control over the legal profession in the country by controlling the admission of lawyers into the profession, regulating the way they discharge their duties, and exercising other broad controlling functions including but not limited to revoking lawyers’ licenses and essentially stripping lawyers’ self-governing bodies of independence.
In November 2021, a set of amendments into the Law on the Bar and Practice of Law in the Republic of Belarus (Law on the Bar) entered into force, which banned lawyers from working individually or opening law firms, requiring them to join legal consultation offices created and supervised by regional bar associations in coordination with the Justice Ministry. The amendments also significantly expanded the Justice Ministry’s control over the self-governing bodies of the bar and eased the conditions for obtaining a lawyer’s status for ex workers of law enforcement and judiciary….
The Belarusian Republican Bar Association (BRBA) and regional bar associations generally have failed to represent and protect the rights of their members and withheld support from lawyers facing obstacles in discharging their duties, which in recent years have come to include harassment, arbitrary detention, and criminal prosecution. Moreover, bar association executive bodies have become vehicles for the agenda of state officials, triggering sanctions against and disbarring lawyers deemed undesirable by the authorities. In light of the control exercised by the state over the formation of the Belarusian bar’s executive bodies and their work, these associations cannot be considered genuinely independent self-governing bodies representing the interests of all lawyers in Belarus.
Some lawyers described the current state of the Belarusian justice system and bar as a “total collapse of the legal system” and many felt “disarmed” in the face of systematic and widespread violations of due process, fair trial, and rule of law. Yet, lawyers noted, that it is their duty to discharge their functions to the highest professional standard, notwithstanding the political motivation of their clients’ cases and the unprecedented pressure from the state:
Recommendations
To the Belarusian Government
- Immediately end the systematic detention and prosecution of anyone who peacefully exercises their rights and freedoms, release all political prisoners, provide effective remedies for victims and survivors of human rights abuses, and carry out prompt and impartial investigations into all alleged human rights violations;
- Immediately end the ill-treatment of prisoners and ensure the protection of their rights and freedoms in confinement, including by ending the pervasive practice of incommunicado detention; grant lawyers and families unhindered access to detainees, and ensure all prisoners receive adequate medical assistance;
- End all harassment of, attacks on, and interference with lawyers, particularly those representing clients in politically motivated cases and exercising their freedom of expression in line with international standards;
- Ensure all courts adhere to fair trial standards. Allow lawyers to effectively perform their professional functions in accordance with the guarantees provided for in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, including by instructing law enforcement and state agencies on the protected role and function of lawyers;
- Repeal and amend national legislation to bring domestic law in compliance with international standards to ensure the independence and self-governance of the legal profession in Belarus;
- Restore the licenses of all lawyers who have been disbarred or lost their licenses as a result of discharging their professional duties in accordance with international standards or for exercising their freedom of expression (including those lawyers who lost their license over arbitrary and state-controlled procedures at the Justice Ministry’s Qualification Commission);
- Guarantee the independence of disciplinary proceedings against lawyers, which should be carried out by lawyers’ self-governing bodies in a fair and objective manner;
- Curtail the Justice Ministry’s authority to interfere with independence of the legal profession, including the ministry’s authority to issue regulations on the work of lawyers, admit them into the profession, revoke licenses, carry out certification procedures, initiate disciplinary proceedings, and shape the selection of executive bodies of bar associations;
- Void existing policies undermining the independence of legal profession and ensure separation of the bar from the state, including by abolishing the pervasive practice of forcing lawyers to express support for the government’s agenda and interests;
- Respect the right to legal assistance, including by removing arbitrary obstacles to lawyers’ access to clients, safeguarding lawyer-client privilege, stopping the practice of making lawyers sign arbitrary and overly broad non-disclosure obligations, and ensuring fair and public trials and full equality of arms in courts of law;
- Promptly comply with repeated requests by the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus to conduct a country visit.
To the Belarusian Republican Bar Association and Regional Bar Associations
- Immediately end retaliation against members for carrying out professional duties or legitimately exercising their freedom of expression, and ensure lawyers targeted on such grounds have access to an effective remedy;
- Repeal internal regulations that undermine the unhindered provision of legal assistance;
- Advocate resolutely with the Belarusian government in support of the above recommendations and for Belarus’s adherence to international standards on the role of lawyers and the right to a fair trial;
- Take measures to actively protect the interests of lawyers, defend the right of all accused to an effective defense regardless of the charges, and emphasize that lawyers cannot be identified with or punished for the alleged crimes of their clients;
- Push back consistently and in principled fashion against the ongoing severe erosion of the bar’s professional autonomy and integrity, and the state’s overarching control of the bar;
- Encourage regional bar associations to draw up rosters of lawyers to visit prisons to provide free legal advice and assistance to prisoners.
To United Nations Member States, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the European Union
- Refrain from any cooperation with the Belarusian Republican Bar Association and regional bar associations until they become independent self-governing bodies representing the interests of Belarusian lawyers;
- Call on the government of Belarus and the Belarusian bar to respect the rights of lawyers and to end arbitrary arrests, harassment, retaliation, and attacks against them;
- Develop and fund programs to support lawyers who have faced retaliation for their professional activities or exercise of freedom of expression and examine ways of integrating Belarusian lawyers in exile into the legal profession in host countries;
- Recognize Belarusian lawyers who have faced retaliation for their professional activities in defending clients in politically motivated cases as human rights defenders and afford them the requisite protection, including assistance with access to visas, funding and protection in exile and protection from transnational repression;
- Consider imposing coordinated, targeted sanctions against the Justice Ministry officials and leaders of the Belarusian bar responsible for the systematic and widespread abuses against lawyers working on politically motivated cases and exercising their freedom of expression;
- Recognize the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers as a key independent organization of Belarusian lawyers, and support its efforts to promote and protect the human rights of lawyers deprived of their right to exercise their profession in retaliation for discharging their duties and exercising their freedom of expression, and to improve the provision of legal aid in Belarus;
- Express solidarity with and provide support to Belarusian human rights defenders working to deter politically motivated repression and document cases of grave rights violations for future accountability;
- Support independent information sources providing independent coverage of events in Belarus and promoting universal human rights principles.
To Bar Associations and Lawyers’ Associations in Europe, Canada, and the US
- Advocate for the above recommendations, in particular , for Belarusian authorities, and bar, to uphold international human rights standards, ending politically motivated persecution, ensuring independence and guarantees for legal profession.
- Privately and publicly express concern at the interference of the government in the work of lawyers in Belarus;
- Support Belarusian lawyers who have experienced or face retaliation for their legitimate professional activities, including by monitoring politically motivated cases against lawyers and, when relevant, providing third party interventions to courts and international agencies;
- Refrain from any cooperation with the Belarusian Republican Bar Association and regional bar associations until they become independent self-governing bodies representing the interests of Belarusian lawyers.
Human Right Watch wrote to the Belarusian Justice Ministry and the Belarusian Republican Bar Association in April 2024 seeking their response to a summary of the report findings. At the time of writing no response had been received.
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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Right Livelihood Laureates illuminated the struggles and triumphs facing youth activists in a panel discussion organised by its Geneva office in March 2024. With speakers including Laureates from Belarus, Cambodia, and Egypt, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, the event painted a vivid picture of the evolving landscape of youth activism.
Natallia Satsunkevich, representing Belarusian Laureate organisation Human Rights Center “Viasna”, shared her journey, beginning as a civil rights summer school attendee to becoming an activist with Viasna to shed light on the abuses of Belarus’s repressive regime.
“I realised that I have this power to monitor and control the government,” she said. “This is obviously the aim of civil society in each country.”
She has faced backlash for her work: her apartment was searched and her mother was questioned by authorities. Eventually, Satsunkevich had to flee Belarus to avoid criminal prosecution. Five of her Viasna colleagues, including founder and Right Livelihood Laureate Ales Bialiatski, are imprisoned for their work.
“Nevertheless, I think the decision to become a human right activist and joining Viasna was one the best decisions of my life,” she said, pointing to the close friendships and working relationships she has developed. “The most important point is that I feel like I am doing the right thing, I know that I am making this world better.”
She called on young people around the world to “check your rights”: keep an eye on leaders and make sure that all human rights are respected.
Ratha Sun, from the Laureate organisation Mother Nature Cambodia, highlighted the innovative approaches of young activists. Despite facing legal challenges and imprisonment, the group’s viral campaigns and grassroots mobilisation have sparked significant environmental advocacy.
“For all our videos and campaigns, we … think about creativity and technical ideas to get more involvement from young people,” Sun said. “We also work closely with the local community that is being affected by the project [we’re fighting].”
The group’s activism has stopped damaging construction and extraction projects such as a hydropower dam and sand mining.
Their successes have resulted in more attention from the Cambodian public and, at the same time, also drew the ire of the government.
“Between 2015 and now, 11 members of Mother Nature Cambodia have been in jail, and now, six of us still have charges against us from the court,” Sun said, noting that the charges include insulting the king and plotting against the government. Sometimes, they are also accused of being members of the CIA.
“Even though we are facing 10 years in prison, our activists, who are young, are still standing to fight the government,” Sun said.
2016 Laureate Mozn Hassan, the founder of Nazra for Feminist Studies and the Doria Feminist Fund, talked about the double bind of being a young female activist in the Global South. Battling stereotypes and systemic challenges, Hassan emphasised the importance of expressing feminism and fighting gender-based discrimination creatively.
“Being a woman in these contexts is so problematic and has all these barriers from the private and the public – and all of them are affecting us,” Hassan said. “Especially if they are young: … it is also about resources, accessibility and acceptance.”
She noted that in the Middle East and North Africa region, the stigma for young feminist activists working on gender issues has been increasing, and they are targeted more often.
“For example, in Iraq, it’s not allowed to name any of the activity as something relating to gender,” she said, noting that this was especially the case for young activists expressing their femininity or sexuality in non-traditional ways.
When it comes to the tools young activists are using, in many countries, such as Egypt, they are being targeted and imprisoned for social media posts.
Having just finished a report on youth and child human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, provided a global perspective. She highlighted the unique contributions of youth and child activists, drawing attention to their innovative use of social media, decentralisation, and creativity in campaigning.
“Young people face the same challenges as all other human rights defenders, and they often use the same approaches as other human rights defenders,” Lawlor said. “But where they differ is that they are very creative, and they have novel tools and methods.”
She noted their “extremely clever use of social media” that can garner attention.
However, she also pointed out the challenges they face, including exclusion from formal decision-making.
“Ageism is a frequent barrier to young and child activism: Young defenders feel they are not being heard, not being taken seriously, and their views are not being taken into account,” Lawlor said. “Even when their participation in public and political decision-making has been increased, it’s usually a tokenistic box-ticking exercise.”
Young activists also face rampant online harassment, requiring strengthened protection and security for human rights violations perpetrated online. Lawlor’s new report aims to address these challenges and enhance protections for young activists. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/03/07/mary-lawlors-new-report-focusses-on-youth-human-rights-defenders/
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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New York, April 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns Belarusian authorities’ decision to cancel the domain names of news websites they labeled as “extremist” and calls for an end to the use of extremism legislation as a censorship tool to silence independent reporting.
In an April 4 order, the Operational and Analytical Center (OAC) under the President of the Republic of Belarus, a government agency that protects classified information and manages the internet domain name reserved for Belarus ending in .by, said that it would take offline all websites that the ministry of information added to its list of extremist materials.
On April 22, at least 20 news websites on this list that use the Belarus top-level domain displayed a message saying that the website “is not accessible,” according to CPJ’s review.
Authorities have used “extremism” legislation to detain, fine, and jail critical journalists and block numerous popular outlets they have labeled as extremist. Anyone who distributes extremist content can be held for up to 15 days, while anyone charged with creating or participating in an “extremist” group faces up to 10 years in prison under the Belarusian Criminal Code. There are additional penalties of up to eight years in prison for financing extremism and up to seven years for facilitating extremist activity.
“Robbing independent media outlets of their domain names – and the Belarusian public of important information – is a ruthless form of censorship,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “After jailing or forcing into exile independent journalists and silencing critical media, Belarusian authorities are trying to stifle the free flow of information on the internet by weaponizing their shameful extremism legislation.”
Belarus has seen an unprecedented media crackdown since popular protests against the disputed re-election in 2020 of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994.
Barys Haretski, deputy head of the exiled Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group, told CPJ that the authorities in 2023 canceled the domain names of three independent media outlets — ex-press.by, Brestskaya Gazeta and tut.by — as well as BAJ’s domain name in January.
Reform.by, which is known for its investigative work, and Media-Polesye said they received letters from the OAC informing them that their websites’ domain names would be cancelled on April 15.
Another blow to independent media
Svitlana Harda, editor-in-chief of Media-Polesye, told CPJ that the move was “another blow to the independent media, proof that readers are being deprived of their right to receive objective information.”
She said the number of visitors to Media-Polesye was only just approaching the volume that it had been before authorities blocked the website in September 2021.
“We almost reached the previous figures and here is a new blow,” she said, adding that the outlet moved to a new domain name and informed its readers before April 15.
Reform.news editor-in-chief Fyodar Pauluchenka told CPJ that the outlet would have to try to ensure that all of its readers knew that it had moved to a new internet address but its work would not otherwise be affected.
“This is rather a symbolic loss,” said Pauluchenka, whose award-winning website was also blocked by the Ministry of Information in 2021, forcing its staff into exile.
“What is more important here is that the Belarusian authorities violated international obligations on fair distribution of national domain names. There should be a reaction to such actions, not only from fellow journalists, but also from international organizations that manage the internet,” he said, referring to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit responsible for handling domain name disputes.
BAJ’s Haretski said that his organization moved to a new domain name in November, before their original one was cancelled on January 3. He said the move had a “serious impact” on BAJ’s work because the group’s social media handles were named after its internet address, which was widely distributed online.
He said media outlets whose domain name was canceled were likely to see a drop in audience figures because readers could not find the old websites that they had bookmarked and search engines like Google ranked established websites higher than new ones.
CPJ’s emails to the Operational and Analytical Center and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers requesting comment did not immediately receive any responses.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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New York, April 19, 2023—Belarusian authorities must immediately release journalist Aliaksandr Ignatsiuk, who was sentenced to six years imprisonment, and ensure that no members of the press are jailed for their work.
On April 5, a court in the southern city of Stolin convicted Ignatsiuk of extortion, organizing or participating in gross violations of public order, and defaming the president, according to media reports, the banned human rights group Viasna, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile. The court sentenced Ignatsiuk to six years in jail and a fine of 8,000 Belarusian rubles (US$2,450), those reports said.
“The six-year prison sentence for blogger Aliaksandr Ignatsiuk is yet another demonstration of the ruthlessness of President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime towards dissenting voices,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately release Ignatsiuk, drop all charges against him, and ensure that no journalists are jailed for their work.”
Ignatsiuk, who has been detained since July 2023, is a freelance journalist who ran Pro Stolin, a website where he covered local news, as well as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram accounts, where he has a combined following of 16,800 subscribers. The authorities labeled the website as “extremist” in February 2024.
A BAJ representative who spoke to CPJ anonymously, citing fear of reprisal, believes Ignatsiuk “was punished for his blogging activities,” adding that “He [Ignatsiuk] openly criticized local authorities, defended farmers’ rights, and criticized pro-government farmers.”
In 2021, authorities searched Ignatsiuk’s home in connection to coverage of the prosecution of another journalist.
In the early 2000s, Ignatsiuk was the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Vecherniy Stolin, the BAJ representative told CPJ. “After a trial and pressure from the Ministry of Information, the newspaper ceased to exist,” the representative said.
CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee for comment on Ignatsiuk’s case but did not receive any response.
CPJ is investigating a separate incident in which authorities detained Dzianis Nosau, a reporter with local newspaper Vecherniy Bobruisk, on April 8 in the eastern city of Bobruisk to determine whether it was connected to the journalist’s work. A Belarusian court ordered Nosau to be detained for 15 days on charges of distributing extremist content.
Belarus was the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census. Ignatsiuk was not included due to a lack of publicly available information on his detention at the time.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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At the 55th Human Rights Council session, 22 civil society organisations share reflections on key outcomes and highlight gaps in addressing crucial issues and situations [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/02/26/human-rights-defenders-issues-at-the-55th-session-of-the-human-rights-council/]:
The failure of States to pay their membership dues to the United Nations in full and in time, and the practice of conditioning funding on unilateral political goals is causing a financial liquidity crisis for the organisation, the impacts of which are felt by victims and survivors of human rights violations and abuses. … Without the resources needed, the outcomes of this session can’t be implemented. The credibility of HRC is at stake.
We welcome the adoption of three resolutions calling for the implementation of effective accountability measures to ensure justice for atrocity crimes committed in the context of Israel‘s decades long colonial apartheid imposed over the Palestinian people, and for the realisation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Special Procedures expressed their profound concern about “the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide” and called on States to implement an “arms embargo on Israel, heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling […] that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza […].” This session, the Special Rapporteur on the OPT concluded that the actions of Israel in Gaza meet the legal qualifications of genocide.
We deplore the double standards in applying international law and the failure of certain States to vote in favor of ending impunity. This undermines the integrity of the UN human rights framework, the legitimacy of this institution, and the credibility of those States. From Palestine, to Ukraine, to Myanmar, to Sudan, to Sri Lanka, resolving grave human rights violations requires States to address root causes, applying human rights norms in a principled and consistent way. The Council has a prevention mandate and UN Member States have a legal and moral duty to prevent and ensure accountability and non-recurrence for atrocity crimes, wherever they occur.
We want to highlight and specifically welcome the adoption of the first ever resolution on combating discrimination, violence and harmful practices intersex persons. The resolution builds on growing support in the Council on this topic and responds to several calls by the global coalition of intersex-led organisations. The resolution takes important steps in recognising that discrimination, violence and harmful practices based on innate variations of sex characteristics, such as medically unnecessary interventions, takes place in all regions of the world. We welcome that the resolution calls for States to take measures to protect the human rights of this population and calls for an OHCHR report and a panel discussion to address challenges and discuss good practices in protecting the human rights of intersex persons.
We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism. As attested by human rights defenders with albinism, the mandate played an invaluable role by shedding light on human rights violations against persons with albinism through ground breaking research, country visits, and human rights training, and ensuring that defenders with albinism are consulted and take part in the decision-making. The organisations also welcomed the inclusion of language reflecting the important role played by “organizations of persons with albinism and their families”, and the reference to the role of States in collaboration with the World Health Organization, “to take effective measures to address the health-related effects of climate change on persons with albinism with a view to realizing their right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, particularly regarding the alarming incidence of skin cancer in this population, and to implement the recommendations of the report of the Independent Expert in this regard”.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We also welcome the update of the title of the mandate acknowledging the recognition of this right by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 48/13 on 8 October 2021 and the General Assembly resolution 76/300 on 28 July 2022. We also welcome the inclusion of gender-specific language in the text, and we call on the Special Rapporteur to devote a careful attention to the protection of environmental human rights defenders for their strong contribution to the realisation of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, as called for by several States. We also welcome that the Council appointed for the first time a woman from the global south to fulfill this mandate, and we welcome the nomination of another woman as Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.
We welcome the resolution on countering disinformation, which addresses new issues whilst once again rejecting censorship and reaffirming the ‘essential role’ that the right to freedom of expression plays in countering disinformation. We welcome the specific focus on girls – besides women – as well as risks associated with artificial intelligence, gender-based violence, and electoral processes. We urge States to follow the approach of the resolution and to combat disinformation through holistic, positive measures, including by ensuring a diverse, free and independent media environment, protecting journalists and media workers, and implementing comprehensive right to information laws. Importantly, we also urge States to ensure that they do not conduct their own disinformation campaigns. At the same time, social media companies have an essential role to play and should take heed of the resolution by reforming their business models which allow disinformation to flourish on their platforms. The resolution also mandates the Advisory Committee to produce a new report on disinformation, and it is absolutely essential that this report mirrors and reinforces existing standards on this topic, especially the various reports of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.
Whilst we welcome the technical renewal of the resolution on freedom of religion or belief, we regret that the parallel resolution on combating intolerance (widely known by its original name Resolution 16/18) was not tabled at the session. Since 2011, these duel resolutions have been renewed each year, representing a consensual and universal framework to address the root causes of hate based on religion or belief in law, policy, and practice. We call on the OIC to once again renew Resolution 16/18 in a future session, while ensuring no substantive changes are made to this consensual framework. We also urge all States to reaffirm their commitment to Resolution 16/18 and the Rabat Plan of Action and adopt comprehensive and evidence-based national implementation plans, with the full and effective participation of diverse stakeholders.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on prevention of genocide and its focus on impunity, risks and early warnings, as well as the paragraph reaffirming that starvation of civilians as a method to combat is prohibited under international humanitarian law; however, we regret that the resolution fails to adequately reflect and address serious concerns relating to current political contexts and related risks of genocide.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the rights of the child: realising the rights of the child and inclusive social protection, strengthening the implementation of child rights-compliant inclusive social protection systems that benefit all children. We also welcome the addition of a new section on child rights mainstreaming, enhancing the capacity of OHCHR to advance child rights mainstreaming, particularly in areas such as meaningful and ethical child participation and child safeguarding. We remain concerned by persisted attempts to weaken the text, especially to shift the focus away from children as individual right-holders, to curtail child participation and remove the inclusion of a gender perspective.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which addresses effective national legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture. We welcome the new paragraph urging States concerned to comply with binding orders of the International Court of Justice related to their obligations under the Convention Against Torture.
We welcome the adoption of a new resolution on the human rights situation in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities continue their widespread and systematic politically-motivated repression, targeting not only dissent inside the country, but also Belarusians outside the country who were forced to flee for fear of persecution. Today, almost 1,500 prisoners jailed following politically-motivated charges in Belarus face discriminatory treatment, severe restriction of their rights, and ill-treatment including torture. The resolution rightly creates a new standalone independent investigative mechanism, that will inherit the work of the OHCHR Examination, to collect and preserve evidence of potential international crimes beyond the 2020 elections period, with a view to advancing accountability. It also ensures the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur who remains an essential ‘lifeline’ to Belarusian civil society.
We welcome the resolution on technical assistance and capacity building in regard to the human rights situation in Haiti and emphasis on the role civil society plays in the promotion and protection of human rights and the importance of creating and maintaining an enabling environment in which civil society can operate independently and free from insecurity. We similarly welcome the call on the Haitian authorities to step up their efforts to support national human rights institutions and to pursue an inclusive dialogue between all Haitian actors concerned in order to find a lasting solution to the multidimensional crisis, which severely impacts civil society. We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the designated expert and reference to women and children in regard to the monitoring of human rights situation and abuses developments, as well as encouragement of progress on the question of the establishment of an office of the Office of the High Commissioner in Haiti. We nonetheless regret that the resolution does not address the multifaceted challenges civil society faces amidst escalating violence, fails to further address the link between the circulation of firearms and the human rights violations and abuses, and does not identify concrete avenues for the protection of civilians and solidarity action to ensure the safety, dignity and rights of civilians are upheld.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on Iran, renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran and extending for another year the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. The continuation of these two distinct and complementary mandates is essential for the Council to fulfill its mandate of promotion and protection of human rights in Iran. However, given the severity of the human rights crisis in the country, we regret that this important resolution remains purely procedural and fails to reflect the dire situation of human rights in Iran, including the sharp spike in executions, often following grossly unfair trials. It also fails to address the increased levels of police and judicial harassment against women and girls appearing in public without compulsory headscarves, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and families of victims seeking truth and justice, and the continued pervasive discrimination and violence faced by women and girls, LGBTI+ persons and persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities in the country.
We welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on Myanmar, which is a clear indication of the global concern for the deepening human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country as a result of the military’s over three-year long brutal war against the people resisting its attempted coup. We further welcome the Council’s unreserved support for Myanmar peoples’ aspirations for human rights, democracy, and justice as well as the recognition of serious human rights implications of the continuing sale of arms and jet fuel to Myanmar.
We welcome the resolution on the situation of human rights in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression. The latest report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) reveals disturbing evidence of war crimes, including civilian targeting, torture, sexual violence, and the unlawful transfer of children. These findings underscore the conflict’s brutality, particularly highlighted by the siege of Mariupol, where indiscriminate attacks led to massive civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction. The report also details the widespread and systematic torture and sexual violence against both civilians and prisoners of war. Moreover, the illegal deportation of children emerges as a significant issue, as part of a broader strategy of terror and cultural erasure. The COI’s mandate extension is crucial for ongoing investigations and ensuring justice for victims.
By adopting a resolution entitled ‘advancing human rights in South Sudan,’ the Council ensured that international scrutiny of South Sudan’s human rights situation will cover the country’s first-ever national elections, which are set to take place in December 2024. With this resolution, the UN’s top human rights body extended the mandate of its Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
We welcome the resolution on the human rights situation in Syria and the extension of the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which will continue to report on violations from all sides of the conflict in an impartial and victim-centered manner. Syria continues to commit systematic and widespread attacks against civilians, in detention centers through torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance and through indiscriminate attacks against the population in Idlib. We welcome that the resolution supports the mandate of the Independent Institution of the Missing People and calls for compliance with the recent order on Provisional Measures by the ICJ – both initiatives can play a significant role in fulfilling victims’ rights to truth and justice and should receive support by all UN Member States. In a context of ongoing normalisation, the CoI’s mandate to investigate and report on human rights abuses occurring in Syria is of paramount importance.
We continue to deplore this Council’s exceptionalism towards serious human rights violations committed by the Chinese government. At a time when double-standards are enabling ongoing atrocity crimes to be committed in Palestine, sustained failure by Council Members, in particular OIC countries, to promote accountability for crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and Muslim peoples in China severely undermines the Council’s integrity, and its ability to prevent and put an end to atrocity crimes globally. Findings by the OHCHR, the UN Treaty Bodies, the ILO and over 100 letters by UN Special Procedures since 2018 have provided overwhelming evidence pointing to systematic and widespread human rights violations across the People’s Republic of China. We reiterate our pressing call for all Council Members to support the adoption of a resolution establishing a UN mandate to monitor and report on the human rights situation in China, as repeatedly urged by UN Special Procedures. We further echo Special Procedures’ call for prompt and impartial investigations into the unlawful death of Cao Shunli, and all cases of reprisals for cooperation with the UN.
We regret the Council’s silence on the situation in India despite the clear and compounding early warning signs of further deterioration that necessitate preventive action by the Council based on the objective criteria. The latest of these early warning signals include the recent notification of rules to implement the highly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government just weeks before the election, along with recent intercommunal violence in Manipur and ongoing violence against Muslims in various parts of India amid increasing restrictions on civic space, criminalisation of dissent and erosion of the rule of law with political interference.
We further regret that this Council is increasingly failing to protect victims of human rights violations throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The people of Yemen and Libya continue to endure massive ‘man-made’ humanitarian catastrophes caused in large part by ongoing impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other grave violations of international law. In Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and in other MENA countries, citizens are routinely subjected to brutal, wide-spread human rights violations intended to silence dissent, eradicate independent civil society and quash democratic social movements. Countless citizens from the MENA region continue to hope and strive for a more dignified life – often at the cost of their own lives and freedom. We call on this Council and UN member States to rise above narrow political agendas and begin to take steps to address the increasing selectivity that frequently characterises this Council’s approach to human rights protection and promotion.
We regret that once more, civil society representatives faced numerous obstacles to accessing the Palais and engaging in discussions, both in person and remotely, during this session. The UN human rights system in Geneva has always and continues to rely on the smooth and unhindered access of civil society to carry out its mandate. We remind UN Member States, as well as UNOG, that the Council’s mandate, as set out in HRC Res 5/1, requires that arrangements be made, and practices observed to ensure ‘the most effective contribution’ of NGOs. Undermining civil society access and engagement not only undermines the capacities and effectiveness of civil society but also of the UN itself.
Signatories:
- All Human Rights for All in Iran
- Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
- Association Arc pour la defense des droits de l’homme et des revendication democratique/culturelles du peuple Azerbaidjanais Iran -”ArcDH”
- Balochistan Human Rights Group
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
- Child Rights Connect (CRCnt)
- CIVICUS
- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)
- Egyptian initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
- Ensemble contre la Peine de Mort
- Franciscans International
- Gulf Center for Human Rights
- Impact Iran
- International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
- Kurdistan Human Rights Network
- Kurdpa Human Rights Organization
- PEN America
- The Syrian Legal Development Programme (SLDP)
- United 4 Iran
see also: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/un-geneva/eu-human-rights-council_en
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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On 20 March 2024, it was reported that Aliaksandr Vaitseshyk was arrested during a raid on his home.
Last week, human rights defender Aliaksandr Vaitseshyk was detained in Baranavičy. The police released a video of the raid on his home, which shows him lying on the floor during the arrest. The reasons for this harassment are unknown. The activist is being held in the Baranavičy temporary detention center.
The last time Vaitseshyk was arrested was on November 9, 2023. Back then, he was accused of distributing extremist content and detained for 15 days. His laptop and phone were confiscated by court order. See https://apnews.com/article/belarus-crackdown-activists-vaitseshyk-lukashenko-d01124fdbade51518a64ae37c9886cfb.
https://spring96.org/en/news/114803
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.