|
Front Line News Archive
On 7-8 October 2008, in a major inter-institutional initiative, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the United Nations marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by convening a high-level conference in Brussels, entitled "The Defenders take the floor". It was an occasion to review the international and regional support mechanisms that have been developed in favour of human rights defenders. Front Line Director, Mary Lawlor, gave a keynote speech, available here. 
According to information received from the city of Sanandaj, Ronak Safarzadeh, Hana Abdi, and Fatemeh Goftari, women human rights defenders, cultural and social council members of Kurdistan Azarmehr Women and members of the One Million Signatures campaign for legislative reform to promote women's rights in Iran, lost three weeks of visiting rights and were transferred to solitary confinement.
Raji Sourani, Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza city, was this week denied a permit by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to leave the Gaza Strip to address a major human rights conference in Brussels, Belgium.
Saudi human rights lawyer Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim is the winner of the Human Rights Watch 2008 Human Rights Defender award. Human Rights Watch also announced four other winners of the 2008 award, courageous individuals working for justice and human rights from Uzbekistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Front Line welcomes the recent release of human rights defenders Mohammed Badih Dak Al-Bab. Mohammed Badih al-Bab is a member of the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria. Mohammed Badih Dak Al-Bab had been arrested on 2 March 2008 and charged under article 287 of the Syrian Penal Code for the “broadcasting of false news” deemed to be harmful to the state. The charges related to articles he has recently written, in which he criticised the Minister for Information, Mohsen Bilal.
Front Line welcomes the release of human rights defender Hammam Haddad on the morning of the 10th of September 2008.
Hammam Haddad was arbitrarily detained on 7 September 2008. . He has been active in publicising cases of human rights violations in Syria and has also worked to support victims of human rights violations and their families.
Hammam Haddad was previously arrested on 3 May 2008 by Airforce Intelligence in the Harista district of Damascus and released on 5 May 2008. He was under interrogation from 23 April 2008 until his first arrest.
Front Line is deeply saddened by the news of the killing of three staff members of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Afghanistan on 13 August 2008. The IRC advocates on behalf of displaced communities, addressing the root causes of violence and protecting the rights of vulnerable populations.
8 August 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the '8888 Uprising' in Burma when the military killed an estimated 3,000 people following the outbreak of peaceful protests calling for democracy on 8 August 1988. In September 2007 the junta, which has a monopoly on fuel prices, raised the price of fuel from approximately US$1.40 to US$2.80 a gallon, and raised the price of natural gas 5 fold, resulting in students, opposition activists and monks taking peacefully to the streets to protest against the government. During this Saffron Revolution, hundreds of human rights defenders and protesters were detained and sentenced to long periods in prison. Others have been forced into hiding and exile.
Front Line welcomes the release of human rights defenders Hammam Haddad and Bahrouz Yousif.
A recent report by the National Union of Somali Journalists documents the ongoing oppression of and attacks on journalists and other media workers. The NUSOJ has recorded numerous cases of attacks against media professionals and news media organisations particularly in Kismayu, Mogadishu, Galkayo, Bossasso, Baidoa, Beledweyne.
Front Line welcomes the release of human rights defender and journalist Slim Boukhdir on 21 July 2008. Slim Boukhdir was arrested on 26 November 2007 and sentenced to one year's imprisonment on 18 January 2008. He was detained in Sfax prison, 230 kilometres south of Tunis. His release comes four months before the end of his sentence.
Posted 18/07/2008 Zeinab Bayzeydi, women’s rights activist, member of the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan and a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign in the city of Mahabad in Kurdistan Province, was arrested on 9 July 2008. On 5 July 2008, Zeinab Bayzeyd was reportedly summoned by telephone for questioning and interrogated for several hours. She was told to return for interrogation again on 9 July 2008, and after three hours of interrogation, she was arrested on the order of the courts and transferred to a detention center in Mahabad, managed by the Ministry of Information and Security.
Human Rights Watch reported that Repressive New Legislation Should Be Amended or Scrapped in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s government should immediately abandon plans to impose strict government controls and draconian criminal penalties on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said on July 1st. The two groups called on donor governments, whose behind-the-scenes efforts to see the bill reformed appear to have failed, to speak out publicly against the de facto criminalization of most of the human rights, rule of law and peace-building work currently being carried out in Ethiopia.
On 18 June 2008, Sihem Bensedrine and Omar Mestiri were stopped at the Tunisian-Algerian border while on their way to an event in Algeria to promote freedom of expression in the region. They were interrogated for approximately two and a half hours before being released. No reasons were given for their interrogation. Omar Mestiri is the chief editor of the online newspaper Kalima and Sihem Bensedrine is the founder and spokesperson of the Conseil national pour les libertés en Tunisie (CNLT) (National Council for Civil Liberties in Tunisia) and the Secretary-General for the Observatoire pour la Liberté de presse, d'édition et de création en Tunisie (OLPEC) (Observatory for the Freedom of the Press, Publication, and the Arts in Tunisia). On 7 February 2008, Sihem Bensedrine was awarded the 2008 Peace Prize by the Danish Peace Foundation.
Front Line is deeply concerned following the sentencing of women's rights defender Hana Abdi to five years' imprisonment.
|
