Niober had been planning and looking forward to this trip for months. It took him almost two days to reach Havana international airport from his town in Guantanamo, Cuba, but he still arrived well before his flight. He'd budgeted in plenty of time, knowing security is tight and checkpoints are common across the island. At the airport, just before the final security line, an officer from the Ministry of Interior quietly took him to a side. The officer told Niober he could not board the plane.

Andrew Anderson, Executive Director

Bonjour, buenos dias, dobroye utro, sabah alkhayr, good morning.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, and most importantly, human rights defenders,

welcome to the 2017 Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders.

These are hard times for human rights, but pessimists should not underestimate how resilient and powerful human rights defenders can be.

In September 2016, the man who had ruled Uzbekistan for 27 years died. As often happens when authoritarians pass on, Islam Karimov’s death after so many years in power left questions as to who would fill the vacuum, and whether the country’s new ruler would ease the repressive practices of the past regime. When Shvakat Mirziyoyev quickly emerged as the successor to Karimov, many in the international community believed that there would be some form of liberalisation.