by Edward Kline, president
The Andrei Sakharov Foundation (USA)

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the death of dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov. In 1968, he wrote that "intellectual freedom is essential to human society--freedom to receive and impart information, freedom for open-minded and...

By Devon Chaffee, Advocacy Counsel, Human Rights First

Yesterday military judge Lt. Col. Nancy Paul considered pre-trial motions in the case of Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi as the U.S. government takes a third stab at reconstructing the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Judge Paul pushed forward in the...

By Joëlle Fiss,
Pennoyer Fellow, Fighting Discrimination Program

To the utter consternation of the Swiss government, most political parties, non-governmental organizations, journalists, pollsters -- and even the Vatican, 57.5% of the Swiss population voted in a nationwide referendum last Sunday (29 November) to ban the construction of minarets...

By Andrew Hudson, Manager Human Rights Defenders Program

All signs pointed to the release of Carmelo Agamez Berrio, a well known Colombian human rights activist, who has been unjustly detained for almost a year in Sucre. He had been appointed a new prosecutor and senior Colombian justice...

By Julia Fromholz
Director, Crimes Against Humanity Program

President Obama has a full agenda for his current trip to China: climate change, energy, North Korea, Iran, and human rights are just some of the topics on the White House's list. Given the influence of his hosts in Beijing on...

By Ann-Louise Colgan

Perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur--like anywhere else--are dependent on at least indirect support from other countries. The goods and services outside governments provide, including arms and ammunition, affect the ability of all parties to continue to engage in the conflict. But because their actions are one step...

By Julia Fromholz

Three weeks ago, the Obama administration announced its comprehensive policy toward Sudan, relying on both incentives and pressures to move that country toward peace. The clearest manifestation of the policy to date--renewal of U.S. economic sanctions--was distinctly unilateral. Because progress in Sudan will be elusive without the...

By Julia Fromholz

Seven months and a day after President Obama appointed a Special Envoy for Sudan, his Administration has finally agreed on a policy toward that country. This morning's policy announcement, however, will be only another meaningless emission of words if the whole administration fails to ensure that the...

By Joelle Fiss
Human RIghts First Pennoyer Fellow

BRUSSELS, October 3, 2009 - "This is a day of celebration for Ireland and for Europe", chuckled former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to the press from a smoke-filled Irish pub in the heart of the European Union headquarters in Brussels....

Gabor Rona
International Legal Director
Human Rights First

THE END IS NEAR! Or maybe it isn't.

In the second and final Guantanamo military commission proceeding scheduled this week, the government requested, and was granted, yet another delay, this time 60 days. This makes a grand total of ten...

By Gabor Rona
International Legal Director

In true "Camp Justice" fashion, scores of people - lawyers, press, victim families, court personnel, observers, military security and escorts descended upon Guantanamo at taxpayer expense for the better part of a week in order to attend a one hour hearing yesterday in...

By Alexander Verkhovsky and Paul LeGendre

A prominent trial in Saint Petersburg risks going all but unnoticed, yet deserves all the attention it can garner because of its profound implications for Russia. Fourteen neo-Nazi youths are on trial for deliberately and systematically killing eight people, most of them not ethnic...

Cross-posted from the Human Rights First Blog

Two interesting reads that pick up our work on torture and Guantanamo this week:

Tom Ricks comments in Foreign Policy on the op-ed published last week in the Miami Herald by the two chairs of our military coalition denouncing Cheney, calling...

The slow heat of August is upon us, but there is much to work on in Washington. The Obama Administration recently announced long-overdue plans to overhaul the deeply flawed U.S. immigration detention system. This is great news, but we also need legislative action that mandates fair treatment and due process...

A few days ago, on August 2, 2009, a Roma woman, 45, was shot dead and her daughter, 13, seriously injured in an overnight attack of their home in Kisleta, Hungary. The woman's daughter is suffering life-threatening injuries. This tragedy does not appear to be an isolated incident, but rather...

By Annie Sovcik
Advocacy Counsel
Human Rights First's Refugee Protection Program

Recent developments signal that real reform of the immigration detention system may finally be on the horizon. Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its plan to overhaul the nation's flawed immigration detention system. In the...

By Charles Asante-Yeboa
President, African Center of Kyiv

In January 2008, I was returning home from a meeting with a Nigerian man who had been a victim of a violent racist attack a few days earlier. Standing at the bus stop near Shuliavska metro station, I was suddenly...

Mukhtar Mai, a leading Pakistani women's rights advocate, gained fame for the way she courageously stood up to traditions that violated her human rights. Online, one can find plenty of information about her - her gang rape, her recent marriage, her strides for women's rights and education, and the harassment...

Galina Kozhevnikova
Vice-director of SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis

Observing marches and demonstrations staged by Russian ultranationalist groups has become a tradition in my work as the deputy director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis. This year, however, I was taken aback by a sarcastic...

By Andrew Hudson
Senior Associate at Human Rights First

Colombia is high on the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities at the moment: the U.S. has a pending free-trade agreement; Colombian President Uribe is considering a Constitutional amendment to run for a third term á la Bloomberg/Chavez; and many...