On 5 April President Yushchenko issued Decree No. 276/2007 creating the office of Authorized Representative of the President of Ukraine on Observance of Human Rights and Civil Liberties

This intense festival, with over a hundred films on human rights issues, is drawing to a close as the country is gripped by intense emotions of a different or perhaps not so very different nature.

The formal opening of this Fourth International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will take place at 19.00, 30 March (this evening!) at the Kyiv House of Cinema (Saksahansky St, 6). The festival will continue to 6 April, and should not be missed.

The Festival will run in Kyiv from 30 March to 6 April. According to its producer Gennady Kofman, the films provide thought-provoking and gripping viewing, not the sort you watch munching a packet of crisps. After all the producers don’t make anything up, they show things as they are.

According to the US State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices, corruption remains widespread in all branches of power in Ukraine. Other problems highlighted were an increase in racial intolerance; violations of the rights of women and of children; and law enforcement officers frequently resort to torture and extortion

The author points to a worrying deterioration in the human rights situation in the last few months, mentioning among others the potentially disastrous increase in housing and communal charges without any mechanisms to protect the vulnerable, as well as renewed pressure by tax and other controlling authorities not seen since the end of 2004

The person involved has also lodged a claim with the European Court alleging that Ukraine will violate Articles 3 and 6 of the European Convention by sending him back to Belarus where he asserts that the accusations against him are politically motivated

The results make depressing reading with most of those surveyed much more confident of receiving real help from relatives or contacts than from the law enforcement agenices or other authorities

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union reports the worrying reappearance of pressure on businesses from the tax authorities, as well as language and religious conflict and the emergence of skinheads in eastern regions with support coming from certain political forces

The first less than proud (we hope) recipients have been announced of the annual anti-award launched by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union for the most flagrant human rights violation “Thistle of the Year – 2006”.

The film festival which began in Kyiv and was supposed to finish this week in Kharkiv will be extended into next year in order to meet demand (for example, from Lviv and Donetsk).

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union is launching an annual anti-award for the most flagrant human rights violation “Thistle of the Year – 2006”. Recipients will also be entitled to free consultations from human rights activists on ways of improving their work

On the tour around Ukraine of this important human rights film collection, and why human rights groups in Chernihiv are trying to draw attention to human rights infringements in their region

Lawyers from the “Dobrochyn” Centre and consultants from partner organizations will travel around 16 districts of the Chernihiv region providing human rights information and advice on how to defend ones rights

On the work of the public reception centre of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group in the first 6 months of 2006

Yevhen Hrytsyak, one of the leaders of the 1953 Norilsk Uprising , turns 80 tomorrow. We extend our warmest greetings and best wishes to Yevhen Stepanovych and offer the reader a chance to read a remarkable letter

On Ivan Dziuba’s 75th birthday, this discussion on Radio Svoboda points to the enormous role Ivan Mykhailovych’s pivotal work played in Ukraine, and the relevance to this day of the fundamental issues it addressed

The remains will be laid to rest of 225 people, 80 of whom were children, discovered four years in the crypt of a monastery in Zhovkva in the Lviv region

The Perm political labour camps were a terrible part of a repressive machine whose victims "Memorial" is helping to ensure will not be forgotten.

A moving new film about Oleksa Tykhy, one of the founding members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group who died in a Soviet labour camp