Kontakt
Adresse: Kirkegata 5, 0153 OSLO
Telefon: 22 47 92 02
Fax: (+47) 22 41 60 76
Epost: nhc@nhc.no
Gavekonto: 5081 05 58927
Russian Federation:
A Just Russia party candidate in the 4 March 2012 mayor elections in Astrakhan, Oleg Shein, ended his 40 days hunger strike on 24 April after receiving access to webcam videos from polling stations in Astrakhan. Shein and his supporters had filed a law suit claiming that massive fraud had taken place during the elections. – The Central Election Commission should give full access to videos in order to help investigation of all substantiated cases of fraud, says Gunnar M. Ekeløve-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General.
Russland
Den norske Helsingforskomiteen har arbeidet med Russland helt siden stiftelsen i 1977. Komiteen samarbeider med de viktigste russiske menneskerettighetsorganisasjonene og har et omfattende nettverk i Russland. Helsingforskomiteen har engasjert seg særlig i forhold til konflikten i Tsjetsjenia. Vi gjennomfører rapporteringsreiser, fremmer rettsoppgjør både nasjonalt og internasjonalt, støtter menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner og fremmer politiske prosesser som kan bidra til å løse konflikten. Komiteen arrangerer også menneskerettighetsundervisning i Barentsregionen og i Nord-Kaukasus.
Norsk utenrikspolitikk:
-Norge kan gjøre en forskjell i den postsovjetiske regionen, sier generalsekretær Bjørn Engesland.
Nylig deltok Engesland i et møte sammen med andre menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner og ga innspill til utenriksminister Jonas
Gahr Støre for strategier for Russland, Hviterussland og Kasakhstan.
Presidentvalg i Russland:
- Presidentvalget i Russland 4. mars var ikke fritt og rettferdig, sier generalsekretær Bjørn Engesland i Den norske Helsingforskomité. Den norske Helsingforskomité (DNH) har fulgt valgprosessen gjennom vårt samarbeid med GOLOS, den mest erfarne uavhengige valgobservatørgruppen i landet. To representanter fra DNH var dessuten til stede i Moskva valghelgen.
Russia:
Three days ahead of the 4 March 2012 Presidential elections in Russia there is little doubt about the outcome. Despite increasing public protests against prime minister Vladimir Putin, all indications suggest that he will declare victory, probably after the first ballot. This will happen in an environment where free and fair elections are not possible. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) will be present in Moscow during the elections.
Seminar:
- Putin will not survive the next presidential term. He will off course win the upcoming elections, he is in reality the only candidate, but he will be replaced within two years. The Russian political elites will ensure this, together with the protesters in the streets. This was one of the conclusions of Nicolay Petrov, who participated at The Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s seminar Presidential Elections in Russia – a New Spring?, at the House of Literature in Oslo on 15 February.
Russia:
The credibility of the upcoming Presidential Elections in Russia, already marred by the claims of widespread violations in Parliamentary polls in December last year, is waning after Central Elections Commission’s refusal to register the liberal opposition leader, Grigory Yavlinsky for the Presidential race. At the same time, renewed pressure against the respected election monitor organization and NHC partner Golos is disquieting, says Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General.
Invitation to the seminar::
Associate Professor of Law Mr. Jeffrey Khan has recently submitted a report to President Medvedev’s Human Rights Council analyzing the second verdict against the imprisoned former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Dumavalg:
- Russiske myndigheter må akseptere fredelige demonstrasjoner mot måten Duma-valget ble gjennomført på, sier Bjørn Engesland, generalsekretær i Den norske Helsingforskomité. - Norge og EU-land må ta avstand fra arrestasjonene og oppfordre russiske myndigheter til å etterforske brudd på valglovgivningen og respektere ytrings- og forsamlingsfriheten, fortsetter Engesland.
State Duma elections:
The tendency in the result of the voting yesterday nevertheless shows that the Russian population is getting wary of the tightfisted rule of the Medvedev/Putin tandem, says Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee Bjørn Engesland. -Independent national observers all over the country have registered countless violations in the election legislation, including pressure against voters to vote for the ruling party United Russia.
Russia:
Russian authorities undermining trust in elections by impeding monitoring. In the run-up to Russian Duma elections taking place on Sunday 4 December, the country’s most experienced election monitoring group is being under scrutiny by prosecutors and pro-government media. –The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is concerned that these are deliberate attempts at hindering Golos important work, says Bjørn Engesland, Secretary-General. “By limiting monitoring of the elections, authorities are also undermining trust in elections being conducted in compliance with international standards of freeness and fairness.”
Statement:
The elections process ahead of the 4 December Duma elections in the Russian Federation has not been fair”, said Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. “We have serious concerns on obstacles related to nomination of delegates and registration of parties, as well as lack of equal opportunities to campaign.”
OSCE:
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is actively and well represented at this years' OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw. In our interventions at the meeting we will focus on freedom of religion in Central Asia, rule of law in Azerbaijan, Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and freedom of expression in Macedonia, Bosnia and Serbia. We are organising a side-event on lack of justice after major human rights violations in Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Additionally we organise a side-event on strikers' rights in Kazakhstan and we are also co-organising a side-event with particular focus on Ales Bialiatski and the release of political prisoners in Belarus. Below you will find links to the HDIM webpage, all documents from our side-events and interventions and other relevant links.
Seminar:
On 7 October 2006, the courageous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed at the entrance of her apartment in Moscow. Since then, neither the murderers nor any possible assassin's paymaster have been convicted. Anna Politkovskaya was not only a journalist; she fought for the victims of the conflict in North-Caucasus by making their stories known to the public.
Russia:
Norwegian Helsinki Committee Deputy Secretary General, Gunnar M. Ekeløve-Slydal and Advisor, Inna Sangadzhiyeva visited Russia from September 5 to September 9, 2011.
Elena Bonner, the wife of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov, and herself a prominent human rights activist and laureate of the Thorolf Rafto Prize, passed away on 18 June.
On Tuesday, a Moscow court ruled to acquit Oleg P. Orlov, Chair of the Memorial Human Rights Society, one of Europe’s most
respected human rights groups. Mr. Orlov was charged with defamation against Chechen President Ramzan A. Kadyrov, in connection
with statements Orlov made at the time Memorial employee and award winning human rights defender Natalya Estemirova was killed
in 2009.
- I welcome the ruling in our colleague Oleg Petrovich’s case as a step in the right direction for a judicial system that
historically has lacked willingness to support and protect human rights defenders, says NHC Secretary General Bjørn Engesland.
Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia:
Last week, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee hosted a delegation of Azeri, Belarusian, Russian and international human rights defenders. They took part in seminars arranged by the NHC at the Norwegian parliament Stortinget and the Fritt Ord Foundation. In their recomendations to the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the PACE and Stortinget, they called for a sharpening of human rights policies towards Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia.
- The Norwegian Helsinki Committee would like to extend its sincerest congratulations to Svetlana Alekseevna Gannushkina, who yesterday became a Knight of the French Legion of Honour,” says Secretary-General Bjørn Engesland.
Russian Federation/Central Asia:
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is deeply distraught to learn of yet another violent attack on human rights activist and employee of Human Rights Center Memorial, Bakhrom Khamroev, in Moscow on Monday June 6th 2011.
Seminar:
How can we combine the agenda of bilateral business relations with the active promotion and defense of human rights?
North Caucasus:
The Court in Vienna is to reach a verdict on the murder of the refugee who accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of torture today, on 1 June 2011. On the eve of the verdict the coalition of human rights groups monitoring the trial wants to emphasize the importance of this emblematic case and expresses its regret at the absence of cooperation of the Russian Federation with the Austrian justice.
(14/12-2010) The Norwegian Helsinki Committee held its second training seminar for representatives from the Public Observation Commissions of Archangelsk, Murmansk and the Karelian Republic.
(24/09-2010) With the ascension of Dmitry Medvedev to the Russian presidency, a new kind of political rhetoric entered the Kremlin. Medvedev says he wants to combat legal nihilism, and has pledged reform and modernization. Do the modernization plans offer possibilities for Russian human rights groups, asked Secretary General Bjørn Engesland in the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in his introduction at a public seminar organised by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee on 22 September.
The verdict in the case of murdering the Russian lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the journalist Anastasia Baburova is finalized. On May 6, 2011, after more than two years of investigation and lengthy court hearings, the persons, accused of their murder, were convicted.
Bjørn Engesland, secretary general of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee has today sent a letter to Lyudmila Alexeeva, co-founder and leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) congratulating the Russian human rights organisation on its 35 years' anniversary.
Statement from the NHC annual meeting 2011:
At these exceptional times – when authoritarian regimes are falling or are under serious pressure by democratic forces in the Middle East and North Africa – we witness that Europe’s last authoritarian states are successful in retaining control and undermining democratic developments.
Norske organisasjoner samles for en solidaritetsmarkering foran Stortinget torsdag 31. mars kl. 16. Kravet er forsamlingsfrihet
i Russland.
Photo: (c) Andrei Blinushov
Russland:
(14/12-2010) International and Russian human rights organizations have sent a letter to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe expressing concern with the lack of effective implementation of its resolution 1738 (2010) on Legal remedies for human rights defenders in North Caucasus.
