Mazen Darwish
Mazen Darwish ( ar, مازن درويش) is a Syrian lawyer and free speech advocate. He is the president of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression. News organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, have described him as one of Syria's most prominent activists. He was imprisoned in Syria from 2012 until his release in August 2015. Activism Darwish is the president of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, a partner organization of Reporters Without Borders, founded in 2004. The organization was refused accreditation by the Syrian government, but it continues to operate in secret. In 2006, the group launched an independent news website, syriaview.net, but the site was soon banned by the Syrian government. In April 2008, Darwish and a colleague were arrested after their reporting on riots in Adra, a town near Damascus. He was later imprisoned for ten days for "defaming and insulting the administrative bodies of the state." Thirty-fiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions), and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority Syrian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Albanians, and Greeks. Religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis. The capital and largest city of Syria is Damascus. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Razan Ghazzawi
Razan Ghazzawi ( ar, رزان غزاوي; born 1980) is a Syrian-American blogger, campaigner and activist and currently a PhD researcher at the University of Sussex. She has been highly involved in the events during the Syrian Civil War, and has been particularly outspoken on activists' arrests and the violations of human rights committed by the Bashar al-Assad government. She was called "iconic blogger and leading activist" by '' The Telegraph''. Jillian York (who has been called "one of the leading scholars on Internet control and censorship") wrote that Ghazzawi was "one of erheroes." Education and career Ghazzawi received a diploma in English literature from Damascus University in 2003. She obtained a master's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Balamand in 2011. She started her career as a Translator and News Compiler for the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She then worked in the Call Center of MTN Syria, but resigned because she discovered the c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Center For Constitutional And Human Rights
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is an independent, nonprofit non-governmental organization with the aim of enforcing human rights through legal means. Using litigation, it tries to hold state and non-state actors responsible human rights violations. It was founded in 2007 by Wolfgang Kaleck together with a group of human rights lawyers, in order to help protect the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other declarations of human rights and national constitutions, by juridical means. ECCHR engages in litigation, using European, international, and national law to help protect human rights. Topics and Focus ECCHR initiates, develops, and supports strategic human rights litigation to hold state and non-state actors accountable for human rights violations. In doing so, ECCHR tries to work on cases that illustrate and highlight legal and social problems, recognizing that human rights violations are committed in spe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anwar Al-Bunni
Anwar al-Bunni ( ar, أنور البني, born 1959) is a Syrian human rights lawyer who has defended clients such as Riad al-Turk, Riad Seif, the owner of ''The Lamplighter'', (an independent newspaper shut down by the Syrian government), Kurdish protesters, and "dozens of others." Al-Bunni was born in Hama to a Christian family active in dissident leftist politics.Wright, Robin, ''Dreams and Shadows : the Future of the Middle East'', Penguin Press, 2008, pp. 257, 8, 9. According to an interview with American journalist Robin Wright, he became interested in defending dissidents after being beaten, bayonetted, and having his beard set on fire by Syrian soldiers during a military sweep of Hama in 1981. Wright describes him as having spent "most of his life" defending Syria's political dissidents, often pro bono, and having sold his automobile and office to pay his bills as a result.Wright, Robin, ''Dreams and Shadows : the Future of the Middle East'', Penguin Press, 2008, p. 257 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been described as a ''sui generis'' political entity (without precedent or comparison) combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation. Containing 5.8per cent of the world population in 2020, the EU generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around trillion in 2021, constituting approximately 18per cent of global nominal GDP. Additionally, all EU states but Bulgaria have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme. Its cornerstone, the Customs Union, paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where the states have agree ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Catherine Ashton
Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, (born 20 March 1956), is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014. Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, ''of St Albans in the County of Hertfordshire'', by Tony Blair's Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006. Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown's first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU's Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament's upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World Organisation Against Torture
The World Organisation Against Torture (''Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture''; OMCT) is the world's largest coalition of non-governmental organisations fighting against arbitrary detention, torture, summary and extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and other forms of violence. With more than 200 affiliated organisations in its SOS-Torture Network, the OMCT aims at accompanying, reinforcing and protecting anti-torture organisations in particular in erosive environments and provides a comprehensive system of support and protection for human rights defenders around the world. The global network consists of local, national and regional organisations, which share the goal of eradicating torture and fostering respect of human rights for all. The OMCT's ''Prevention of Torture'' programme helps its members prevent and report torture by strengthening their capacity through the SOS-Torture network to use United Nations human rights mechanisms. The programme submits alter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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International Press Institute
International Press Institute (IPI) is a global organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of press freedom and the improvement of journalism practices. The institution was founded by 34 editors from 15 countries at Columbia University in October, 1950, and has members in over 120 countries . IPI's membership is made up of editors and media executives. IPI has a membership category: "IPI Leading Journalists", which is open to heads of media departments, bureau chiefs and media correspondents. In several countries, including Nepal and Azerbaijan, IPI members established national-level committees aiming to support IPI in its work to improve the situation for media. IPI has a consultative status with the UN, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. IPI is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organisations that monitors press freedom and free expression violations worldwide. It is a member of the Tunisia Monitor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Index On Censorship
Index on Censorship is an organization campaigning for freedom of expression, which produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association with the UK-registered charity Index on Censorship (founded as the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust), which are both chaired by the British television broadcaster, writer and former politician Trevor Phillips. ''Index'' is based at 1 Rivington Place in central London. WSI was createdScammell, Michael (1984), "How Index on Censorship Started", in Theiner, George, ''They Shoot Writers, Don't They?'', London: Faber & Faber, pp. 19–28. . by poet Stephen Spender, Oxford philosopher Stuart Hampshire, the publisher and editor of ''The Observer'' David Astor, and the writer and expert on the Soviet Union Edward Crankshaw. The founding editor of ''Index on Censorship'' was the critic and translator Michael Scammell (1972–1981), who sti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human rights abusers to denounce abuse and respect human rights, and the group often works on behalf of refugees, children, migrants, and political prisoners. Human Rights Watch, in 1997, shared the Nobel Peace Prize as a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and it played a leading role in the 2008 treaty banning cluster munitions. The organization's annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, $69.2 million in 2014, and $75.5 million in 2017. History Human Rights Watch was co-founded by Robert L. Bernstein Jeri Laber and Aryeh Neier as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the then- Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a practic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arab Network For Human Rights Information
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) was a non-governmental organization devoted to promoting freedom of expression across the Middle East and North Africa. It was founded in the year 2004. Based in Cairo, Egypt, the organization was founded by prominent Egyptian attorney and human rights activist Gamal Eid, who also served as the ANHRI's executive director.Granger, WilliamGamal Eid: Executive Director, Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. 2011-12-13. The ANHRI collected publications, campaigns, reports, and statements from almost 140 Arab human rights organizations across the region and republished them in a daily digest on its website. The group focused on supporting free expression, especially via the internet and mass media, and worked on behalf of persons regarded as having been detained on political grounds. It also advocated against censorship by Arab governments. The ANHRI described it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |