Nasrin Sotoudeh is renowned worldwide for her work as a lawyer in Iran. She has represented women’s rights defenders, religious minorities, and minors sentenced with the death penalty. Iranian authorities have tried to prevent her from carrying out her professional duties as a lawyer. Nasrin has had her licence to practise revoked and has been...

Crackdowns on civil society space through funding and registration restrictions, as well as proliferating forms of harassment, including through litigation, have become increasingly common throughout South Asia as a means to silence criticism. At a time when freedom of expression and association are under threat, when transparency and accountability and under pressure, the need for...

Belarus on the Edge: Europe on the Brink? Thursday, 24th September 2020 at 6pm, via Zoom Chair: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Speakers include (TBC): Elena Korosteleva, Miriam Lexmann, Boriss Cilevics, Laurynas Jonavičius, Pavel Kuryan, Julia Korosteleva, Nadzeya Husakouskaya, Bill Bowring and a Representative from Viasna. Belarus in Crisis: The world looks on with a combination...

For 26 years Alexandr Lukashenko has been widely referred to as “the last dictator of Europe”. Belarus, under Lukashenko’s tenure, is not a democratic society. As with all totalitarian regimes, power resides in Presidential authority. There is no meaningful accountability. Human rights are neither universal nor accessible. Periodically, there is a vote for the President....

On Wednesday 22 July, the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC), the All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG) and the APPG on Uyghurs were pleased to host an online panel event to launch BHRC’s new high-level report: The Responsibility of States under International Law to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. Allegations...

Last week, Hong Kong Watch and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) held a closed-door Webinar bringing together prominent members of the British and Hong Kong legal and academic community, with parliamentarians from the UK and the EU also in attendance, to discuss the impact of the new National Security Law in Hong Kong. The topics...

BHRC was pleased to take part in a virtual conference on 21 June 2020, hosted by the Media and Law Studies Association and PEN International, regarding  Nedim Türfent, a Kurdish journalist who has now been imprisoned for 1,500 days on ‘freedom of expression’ charges.   The conference highlighted the continuing dire situation for journalists in Turkey,...