The EU’s new plan to protect democracy targets foreign influence and misinformation. By copying “foreign agent” laws, 🇪🇺-states could harm democracy and human rights defenders, the EU’s real shield 🛡️⚡️ By @carlosdolan.bsky.social in @epc-official.bsky.social www.epc.eu/publication/...

A day without earl grey just isn’t a good day. #OMG #JustSaying

Today EU Human Rights Representative @kajsaollongren.bsky.social presents her priorities before @droi.europarl.europa.eu & @afet.europarl.europa.eu ⚖️ She must address Azerbaijan’s human rights crisis: 1️⃣ Support exiled civil society & media 2️⃣ Build a common EU response #StayTuned for our report 🇦🇿🇪🇺

Western media is (finally) paying attention to Sudan: 25 million facing famine, 150000 dead, children executed, women raped, murdered 💔🇸🇩 Will those who showed (justified) solidarity with Gaza now invest energy for the people of Sundan? Selective silence speaks loud.

“It's Time for Peace” 🇮🇱🕊️🇵🇸 @pinkfront.bsky.social

“State violence starts when the state withdraws protection” ♀︎💪💜

A year after the #NoviSad tragedy, Serbia’s streets still echo with repression🇷🇸⚡️ Protesters beaten, lawyers blocked, sound cannons deployed, NGOs raided. Civic space collapse💥 Read @goranmiletic.bsky.social on what must change, exclusive for @curecampaign.bsky.social 🔗 mailchi.mp/csf-ev.org/s...

When the far right’s words become parliament’s votes ⚡️ For the first time, a #LePen Rassemblement national text was adopted by the National Assembly 🇫🇷 The “cordon sanitaire” that once protected democracy has snapped ‼️ @liberation.fr 🔗 www.liberation.fr/politique/el...

The European five-step playbook is unfolding to kill civil society: 📌 Fabricate the scandal 📌 Institutionalise the witch-hunt 📌 Defund 📌 Criminalise 📌 Exploit what’s left What disappears with NGOs isn’t “lobbying”, it’s accountability itself. @euobserver.com euobserver.com/news/ar1c67c...

So happy for Miklós Haraszti, a friend, mentor, lifelong defender of democracy. From Hungary’s underground press to the UN and OSCE, his courage and integrity, his humour and intelligence have inspired me. A well-deserved recognition by @freedomhouse.bsky.social 🫶

Unacceptable threats against @mmkarmenia.bsky.social in Armenia 🇦🇲 Thanks to Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders for speaking up. We all stand in solidarity with Mamikon 💙🏳️‍🌈 @pinkarmenia.org

Time for a woman at the head of the United Nations 💪

Looking forward to spend a few days in Brussels ☀️ On the agenda: 🇪🇺⚖️🇦🇿 EU-Azerbaijan relations 🚨🇪🇺 European security architecture 🇺🇦 Rule of law in Ukraine 🫶 Seeing great friends and colleagues again

Environmental destruction is a crime against humanity 🌍⚡️ Leila Nadya Sadat argues that the UN treaty on crimes against humanity must recognise environmental harm as its 12th crime. Close a 30-year gap: name what truly “shocks the conscience of humanity.” 🔗 www.justsecurity.org/122271/envir...

Great to meet the FGIP Board in Prague💙 Our strategy, based on 45 years of experience, addresses today’s challenges: 💪Multifaceted mental health crisis ⚖️Repression targeting civil society 🛑Populism and reduced foreign funding. 🔗 fgip-global.org/wp-content/u...

The so-called head of 🇬🇪 government was still trying to make himself look important among the European leaders just 2 days ago. Today, his regime is waging war against its own people with tear gas and violence. What a disgrace. Europe, stand with the Georgians.

This 🇬🇪⤵️

The attack on civil society is a major faultline⚡️ 🌍 Civil society closures 💸 Aid collapse 🛑 Weaponised laws 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 Gender & LGBTQI rights attacked ⚔️ Security over rights An existential threat to democracy, solidarity, human dignity. @unsrapporteurfoaa.bsky.social 🔗 www.ohchr.org/en/documents...

Швейцария: права человека должны стать главной темой ОБСЕ🇨🇭 Oпубликовано с Элеонорой Монгелли @eleonoramongelli.bsky.social

Wow! youtu.be/I_KsGWbPY8c?...

When you arrive in Prague and the radio plays the perfect welcome song: 99 Luftballons. #TaxiSkeet

When multilateral organisations yield to a “culture of caution”, they lose legitimacy in the eyes of those who most embody their values, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists. That loss is a faultline ⚡️ 🔗 www.linkedin.com/pulse/cautio...

Balthasar Glättli spricht von einer “Bromance”. Ich lernte ihn durch unsere Zusammenarbeit als klugen, offenen, bescheidenen Menschen kennen. Sein Einfluss auf die Grünen Schweiz war immens. Zürich verdient jetzt @bglaettli.bsky.social 💚 🔗 www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/people/swiss...

OMG 🥸 #Trump #UNGA80

The UN Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders has submitted an amicus brief in Anar Mammadli’s case 🌍 Azerbaijan has a duty under the Aarhus Convention: defenders must not face reprisals ⚖️ Calls for Anar’s release and for charges to be dropped 🕊️ 🔗 unece.org/ACSR_C_2024_...

Honoured to have had the chance to speak at the 8th Leonidas Donskis Conference in Vilnius on Human Rights: from Hope to Despair. For the first time since the Holocaust, humanity will end this decade worse off than it began 📉 A thread below 🧵⤵️

"...not only are [Trump's] aid cuts killing children every day ... the death toll is accelerating" www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

This should matter to all of us and indeed be a priority ⤵️

2026 wird @SwissMFA @ignaziocassis🇨🇭 den #OSZE-Vorsitz übernehmen. Dies bietet die Gelegenheit, sich auf eine der Kernaufgaben zu konzentrieren: eine regelbasierte Sicherheit, mit Menschenrechte im Mittelpunkt, schreibe ich mit @EleMongelli @swissinfo_de www.swissinfo.ch/ger/krieg-fr...

Full room for Rachel Denber update on the human rights situation in the OSCE region. Great to have her here with us 🙌

“Back to Square One?” Leonidas Donskis Conference about to start in Vilnius, discussing the rise and fall of the Helsinki Agreements #OSCE2025. Follow here for live updates ⤵️

Human rights & democracy are not add-ons, rather foundation of European security. Anything else is a faultline⚡️ @switzerlandosce.bsky.social 2026 presidency will test if rules-based security still holds. By @eleonoramongelli.bsky.social & @florianirminger.ch 🔗 www.swissinfo.ch/eng/war-peac...

Back in Vilnius ❤️🇱🇹 I’ll speak at the Leonidas Donskis Conference the panel “Human Rights: from Hope to Despair”⚡️ With @eleonoramongelli.bsky.social, I argue Switzerland’s 2026 OSCE presidency is a chance to put rights back at the core of security 🔗 www.swissinfo.ch/eng/war-peac...

International Day of Democracy ⚖️🗳️🕊️ A perfect day to welcome @kajsaollongren.bsky.social as EU Special Representative for Human Rights. Her experience is key to tackling a growing European faultline: human rights within the emerging defence architecture⚡️

A silent crack, a faultline with far-reaching consequences⚡️ Using criminal law to silence dissent undermines democratic security. All governments should take note of the new @coe.int guidance issued today. Courts should use it to uphold individual rights ⚖️ 🔗 www.coe.int/de/web/porta...

En cette Journée mondiale de prévention du suicide, rappelons-nous que le suicide est la première cause de mortalité chez les 15-29 ans en Suisse. Ce sujet reste encore trop tabou. Nous pouvons faire la différence 💙 🔗 stopsuicide.ch

#UNGA80 opens as China fills the void left by the US Rewriting norms, choking civil society, escaping accountability 🚨 The UN is being reshaped from within — the UK and Europe must respond. ✍️ My piece for @fpcthinktank.bsky.social 🔗 fpc.org.uk/op-ed-us-ret...

Sudan: A War of Atrocities Over 12 million people displaced; at least 150,000 killed. Camps shelled & burned 🏚️ Systematic rape & sexual slavery used as weapons of war 💔 Starvation inflicted through sieges & blocked aid 🍂 A crisis the world cannot keep overlooking ⚡️ #HRC60

International Literacy Day📚 Literacy is a human right and the key to many others. Yet 739 million people lack basic skills, 2/3 of them are women and girls. Literacy decline is a silent crack, a faultline threatening justice, equality, and peace 🧐🌍⚡️ #LiteracyDay

Another week of repression in Azerbaijan: ⚖️ Baku Appeal Court upheld the 15-year sentence of Bahruz Samadov after a closed hearing. He is now on hunger strike. ✍️ New charges against human rights defender Bashir Suleymanli in the ongoing NGO crackdown. Voices for justice are silenced again.

Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin at the TEHA Forum in Cernobbio says its gas storage is secure—but still plays into Azerbaijan’s hand 🇮🇹⛽️a🇦🇿 By leaning on Baku for supply, Rome helps polish Azerbaijan’s image abroad, whilst repression and human rights abuses continue at home.

Women in Kenya are marching against rising femicide—facing a state that looks away ✊🏽 This is not just Kenya’s story. It is a global faultline⚡️🌍 A gender backlash where violence against women thrives in impunity. 🔗 Powerful piece openglobalrights.org/unpunished-a...

Today we hear Ethiopia is bidding to host #COP32 🌍📢🇪🇹 Another COP in a country where civic space is crushed, dissent silenced, human rights ignored. Can climate change be tackled without real civil society? This is a crack we should hear — a faultline ⚡️

🇦🇿 Azerbaijan tried to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. India blocked it. Given Baku’s record of jailing journalists, crushing dissent & silencing defenders, it would have fit right in. But as a @coe.int member, that says everything about how it undermines the values it signed up to❗

Norway elections next week🇳🇴🗳️ Russia war in Ukraine = fossil phase-out🇪🇺 = fossil boost🇳🇴 Polls show ↗️ for @mdg.no backing transition and Progress Party pushing oil & gas—outcome will shape Europe’s energy path. Great read with @elinlb.bsky.social 🔗 www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/norways-elec...

Two summits, two worlds 🌍 In Bled leaders and democracy defenders debate resilience and human rights 🕊️ In Beijing autocrats parade missiles and pledge loans to secure allegiance 💣 The silence of the US speaks volumes 🇺🇸 🔗🧐 A fractured order, a realignment underway www.linkedin.com/posts/floria...

Civil society in Georgia is under attack 🇬🇪🚨 🚔 Crackdowns ⚖️ Arbitrary arrests 💳 Frozen bank accounts. As civil society leader Ucha Nanuashvili writes, @coe.int must act now to defend human rights rights and democracy, and their defenders. 🔗 mailchi.mp/csf-ev.org/j...

🗽 If the Trump administration refuses to honour the UN Headquarters Agreement, shouldn't the General Assembly move its 80th session to Geneva instead? 🌍 #UNGA80 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Director of @abzasmedia.bsky.social, human rights defender and journalist Ulvi Hasanli is shortlisted for the @pace.coe.int 2025 Václav Havel Prize, alongside journalists Mzia Amaghlobeli and Maksym Butkevych 🫶 🔗 More about Ulvi: free-anar.site/political-pr... #FreeAbzas #ClimateOfRepression

“A double war.” That’s how Marie*, a civil society leader, describes the situation in eastern #DRC. “Once with the violence from the rebels, and then again with the impacts of the USAID cuts.” 🔗 www.devex.com/news/the-us-...