Today is World Refugee Day and for the first time in history you can witness refugee camp life in real time, live on the UNHCR refugeedaylive.org website between 2pm and 2am GMT (9am and 9pm EST).
Watch and gain insights into daily refugee camp life:

A refugee mother cooking a meal for her children using refugee rations,
Meet [...]

Tags: Global, Refugees, World Refugee Day

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When we think of Human Rights we tend to think about, freedom of speech, freedom from persecution on the grounds of religious or political belief, torture, unjust imprisonment and state endorsed police or military brutality, on Earth Day 2009 Human Rights Digest looks at the link between environmental rights and human rights.
Many think of environmental [...]

Tags: Global

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Document 7, the UK’s only film festival dedicated to international human rights, will take place in October 2009 in Glasgow. Now in its 7th year, the festival is seeking submissions (deadline: 5th June 2009) which help us understand the world around us. From politically charged frontline reportage to cinematic explorations of what it is to [...]

Tags: Global, UK

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The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is organizing the first “World Conference on Untouchability” at Conway Hall Humanist Centre, London, UK, on June 9 and 10, 2009. The conference will bring together activists and experts from around the world to explore a problem that afflicts nearly 250 million people in countries from Japan to [...]

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The 564-page World Report 2009, Human Rights Watch’s 19th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2008 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in [...]

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In a powerful victory for the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, last Thursday 66 nations at the UN General Assembly supported a ground breaking statement confirming that international human rights protections include sexual orientation and gender identity. It is the first time that a statement condemning rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, [...]

Tags: Global, LGBT, UN

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Today Human Rights Digest launch the Human Rights Links Directory.

We’ve received many link inclusion requests this year and struggled to accommodate and do justice to them on the site as it was, so we’ve created a links directory that has an unlimited capacity.
At the moment categorisation is by region or in the global category for [...]

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The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism
A new HRW report “This Alien Legacy“describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. This year, the High Court in [...]

Tags: Global, LGBT

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Human rights defenders continue to face serious threats in countries across the OSCE region, concludes a report published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
“Some of the report’s findings are alarming. The threats human rights defenders still face in many OSCE countries are unacceptable in a democratic society,” said Ambassador [...]

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The freedom of expression rapporteurs of the United Nations, the OSCE, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) released a joint declaration today on defamation of religions, and anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation.
After meting on 9 December in Athens, the four media freedom ‘watchdogs’ adopted their annual [...]

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