United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders

In May, I had an eye-opening online meeting with eight human rights defenders from different organisations in Serbia, who told me that over the past year, the environment for HRDs had sharply deteriorated, marked by escalating repression, judicial harassment and systemic hostility from state authorities.

[English / العربية] In an online meeting last month with Libyan human rights defenders, I learned about the dangers they face because of their work and how they are bravely persisting under repressive laws and religious edicts in addition to powerful armed militias acting with impunity.

I was greatly concerned to learn that a number of human rights defenders and others received summonses last week for a court hearing in relation to posts they had made on social media about the ruling party.