VIENNA, 31 March 2015 — OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today welcomed the sentences of two people for the murder of newspaper editor Abdulmalik Akhmedilov in August 2009 in Makhachkala, in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.

The 47 member states of the Council of Europe have reaffirmed their support for the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and given their backing to a series of measures to improve the implementation of judgments from the Strasbourg court.

Utah’s decision to turn to the firing squad if it is unable to secure drugs for lethal injection is the latest attempt by a US state to keep alive a punishment that should have long ago been consigned to the history books, said Amnesty International today.

21 March 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of World Down Syndrome Day. For WDSD 2015, Down Syndrome International will focus on: ‘My Opportunities, My Choices’ — Enjoying Full and Equal Rights and the Role of Families".

On 18 March, in  Frankfurt-on-Mein  (Germany), a peaceful protest timed to the ceremonial opening of new European Central Bank headquarters turned into clashes between police and protesters.

Activist of the ‘Anti-Maidan’ protest in Kharkov Spartak Golovachev arrested on 30 April last year in relation to the occupation of the regional administration building has been on hunger strike for more than two weeks. The detainee’s wife says neither Ukrainian authorities nor the prosecutor’s office or local mass media pay any attention to the political prisoner.

10 March 2015, Geneva, — Violence committed in the name of religion does not simply ‘erupt’, but is typically caused by contemporary factors and actors that provide the fertile ground for the seeds of hatred, United Nations human rights expert Heiner Bielefeldt said today during the presentation of his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council.

Amnesty International USA joined a major new lawsuit today filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a broad group of organizations challenging the National Security Agency’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ Internet communications, including emails,  web-browsing  content, and  search-engine  queries.

9 March 2015 — As women thrive, so will humanity but if girls are held back, the whole world will feel the pain,  Secretary-General  Ban  Ki-moon  warned the  high-level  opening of the United Nations body tasked with the promotion of gender quality and the empowerment of women, which also saw the adoption of a political declaration reaffirming commitment to the outcome of the historic 1995 Beijing women’s conference.

3 March 2015 — Three quarters of the world population has no access to proper pain relief treatment, according to a report by the United Nations body charged with overseeing Governments’ compliance with international drug control treaties, which was released in London today.