Newsletter from the Human Rights House Network, 1st January 2005

1 Burmese workers in Thailand are the forgotten tsunami victims
Thousands of Burmese migrant workers lived and worked in the coastal provinces struck by the tsunami. At least 2500 have been killed in only one of the Thai provinces, and 4000 are missing. - Many have gone into hiding. Burmese NGOs in Thailand try to help these forgotten victims, says Åse Sand at the Norwegian Burma Committee. The Norwegian Human Rights House supports this work.

2 HRH calls for justice in Grozny
The Human Rights House Foundation (HRH) calls for the Russian authorities to establish the fate and whereabouts of Zelimkhan Murdalov, who disappeared in 2001, and to investigate allegations that he was arbitrarily detained and tortured. The case will reopen in Grozny on Tuesday.

3 Banned author speaks out
British playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti has broken her silence to speak about the violent protests against her play Behzti, which caused outrage for its depiction of rape and murder in a Sikh temple. Index on Censorship reports.

4 Croatia: Democratic elections still with irregularities
The second round of the presidential elections, held on January 16th, was mainly conducted in a democratic atmosphere according to the electional law. However, irregularities with the voters lists and serious violations of electional silence were registered again.

5 Tunisia: - Human rights defenders constantly harassed
- The situation for human rights defenders in Tunisia is extremely difficult. They are being monitored around the clock and are constantly being harassed by the authorities, says Carl Morten Iversen, Secretary General of the Norwegian PEN, who returned from Tunisia yesterday.

6 Prize to Russian activists
The jury of the Olof Palme Prize has awarded three Russian human rights activists in 2004. The Prize will be given to the head of Helsinki Group in Moscow, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the president of the Human Rights Institute, Sergei Kovalyov, and the reporter of the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Anna Politkovskaya.

7 Belarus: Demonstrators wearing orange detained
18 opposition activists, mainly youths, were detained in Minsk on the evening of December 28 for participation in solidarity action with the democratic forces of Ukraine after their leader Viktor Yushchenko’s victory in Ukraine`s presidential election, reports Charter97`.
See also: Human rights seminar in Minsk 18-19 February

8 Uganda: Death row inmates put their own penalty on trial
This week, Uganda´s constitutional court began hearing an unprecedented legal challenge to capital punishment from the country´s more than 400 death row inmates.
- While this is surely important, I fear that Ugandan authorities may welcome this opportunity to draw attention away from far bigger human rights problems, especially in the north, says Niels Jacob Harbitz at the Human Rights House Foundation.
See also Death penalty protesters making gains in Africa

9 Iran: Summons against Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi withdrawn
Iran's judiciary has retreated from its threat to arrest the human rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi. In a rare acknowledgement of mistake, a spokesman for the judiciary referred to the summons quite simply as an error.
See also: Shirin Ebadi's memoirs to be published in the US

10 Kenya: The "Discriminatory" Children's Act is challenged in Court
The discriminatory Children´s Act has been challenged in court and the hearing of the case is scheduled to begin in February 2005. According to Erica Neiglick at the CRADLE, children born out of wedlock get less support than children born by married parents, in respect to parental responsibilities.

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Borghild T. Krokan
Editor/Project Manager
The Human Rights House Foundation (HRH)
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