They are the scapegoats for Turkish elites who are trying to escape from the burdens of our history. Without knowing history, we can never understand how this handful of...
2009 Press Releases
Press Releases
With and for the poor,” the planning key to protect urban dwellers from climate change, says UN expert on World Habitat Day
Low income dwellers are often located in the most hazard prone areas within cities. They lack the basic infrastructure and services necessary to protect them from environmental disasters. “Cities...
2009 Press Releases
Press Releases
Turkey: Commissioner Hammarberg recommends further efforts to protect human rights for minorities, asylum seekers and refugees
The Commissioner is concerned that the authorities do not officially recognise the existence of any minority groups other than those of Armenians, Greeks and Jews and recommends efforts to...
Selected Titles From Human Right Agenda
Uncertainty and injustice for minority refugees from Iraq – new report
A disproportionate number of those fleeing Iraq – somewhere between 15-64 per cent, depending on the country of refuge – are minorities, including Christians, Circassians, Sabian Mandaeans, Shabaks, Turkmen...
Massacres of Armenians were orchestrated and organized by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) — which came to power through a military coup — while the Ottoman Empire...
2009 Press Releases
Press Releases
UN human rights chief lists tackling discrimination and impunity among top priorities
The UN’s top human rights official said there were “huge gaps” between the “lofty pledges” made by states and the realities of daily life for many of their inhabitants,...
2009 Press Releases
Press Releases
“The stigmatising of persons with intellectual disabilities is a neglected human rights crisis” says Commissioner Hammarberg
In these segregated institutions very little, if any, rehabilitation is provided. Not infrequently, persons with intellectual disabilities are placed together with persons having psychiatric problems and unnecessarily given sedatives...
Articles
Democracy And Human Rights
On Sept. 11, Armenian massacres, butterflies, the caliphate and the EU
If Turkey can recover its memory, if Turkey maintains peace with its Muslim identity on the one hand and its long history with Christians on the other, I believe...
A few days ago, I had a strange moment of “enlightenment” that I would like to share with you. All of a sudden, I realized that I have never...
2009 Press Releases
Press Releases
“Flawed enforcement of court decisions undermines the trust in State justice” says Commissioner Hammarberg
Cases of non-enforcement of domestic judicial decisions are raised in a great number of complaints to the Strasbourg Court of human rights. Among countries with such cases are Albania,...