Week in Oslo

Photo: Daiva Petkevichut

1 to June 7, a global forum for freedom of expression was held in Oslo. During the week, more than 500 delegates from more than 100 countries of the world, representing 230 organizations - civil activists, human rights activists, journalists, writers, philosophers, artists - discussed almost all the urgent problems of freedom of expression: human rights violations, pressure, threats and physical violence against activists of civilian organizations and mass media and crime, legislative initiatives designed to minimize Threats directed against human rights activists and journalists. At working meetings, lectures, seminars, training sessions, the forum delegates shared experience, talked about the features of activity in specific countries and regions.
According to public organizations, today there are state censorship in more than 70 countries of our planet, since the beginning of 2009, 22 journalists have died in Oslo and in the world, 122 have been imprisoned for their professional activities.

All these problems are extremely relevant for modern Russian reality. The vast majority of the Russian media today are strictly dependent on the policy of the authorities of various levels. There remains only a small handful of non-aggressed mass media and individual journalists who often face in their work with serious obstacles.
And on June 3, a ceremony of presenting the prestigious journalistic prize “Free Press of Eastern Europe” was held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. The award was established by the German Foundation named after Gerda Bucerius and the Norwegian Institute "Free Word" in 2000. This year, four journalists and three publications from the CIS countries were selected from many candidates presented to the competition. Honored awards were received by our colleague Zoya Svetova, Novaya Gazeta correspondent Roman Shleinov, journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan Marianna Grigoryan and Natig Javalda. The weekly “Nova Hour” (Belarus), “Batumelibi” (Adjara), Azadlyg (Azerbaijan; the editor -in -chief of this newspaper Gunamy, Zahid, was in prison for his professional activity) were recognized as the best publications.
The delegates of the forum and laureates of the award were welcomed and congratulated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway Jonas Ga Gar.
And on June 6, at the Faculty of Law of the Norwegian University, the Norwegian Human Human Human House House Network and representatives of other local and international organizations held a rally in support of political prisoners around the world, as well as all persecuted for beliefs. The Norwegian house took advantage of this opportunity to raise a number of acute problems in connection with the situation in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and collect signatures under three appeals.
In the first, addressed to the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of Belarus, the concern of the vengeful policies of the authorities in relation to civilian activists, in particular, were expressed by their forced mobilization into the army, despite the fact that they were previously recognized as unusable for military service on medical reasons.
In another appeal addressed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, there was a call to release Chechenka Zar Murtazaliev, who, as Russian journalists and human rights activists were convinced, was sentenced to fabricated charges of terrorism in 2004. The representatives of Dosh, who was closely following the fate of Murtazalieva, told her story in detail here. Another letter was sent to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev with a call to stop the persecution of opposition journalists, finally conduct an investigation of the murder of the editor of the Monitor magazine Elmar Huseynov and release journalists from prisons for publications that were objectionable to the authorities.
Residents and guests of Oslo carefully met these appeals and put their signatures under them.