Civil Rights Defenders defends people’s civil and political rights and supports human rights defenders in Sweden and the rest of the world. We have achieved fantastic goals together with human rights defenders from the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Our work has contributed to hundreds of thousands of people in Former Yugoslavia and Russia getting access to legal aid. The European Court of Justice has, in over one hundred separate cases, convicted Russia for extrajudicial executions, torture and disappearances in Chechnya and other parts of Northern Caucasus. Hundreds of Roma in Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo have been registered and gotten citizenships through us.
For several years, we have looked at and paid attention to states’ intrusion into people’s privacy. Our work has contributed to a more secure legislation in countries like Sweden and Serbia. We are also actively working to strengthen the protection against discrimination by putting together, along with our partners, proposals for laws against discrimination and by working to get the laws passed by the countries parliaments.
We support independent media and make it possible for them to spread professional and balanced information as a counterweight to the governmental hate and war propaganda that repressive regimes all over the world feed their population with.
For us, it is a matter of course to work for human rights in our own country. But that is something we are almost alone in doing. We feel that Sweden, like other countries, needs a strong civil society that scrutinizes those in power, in order to be able to continue to develop in a positive direction.
Events
We arrange breakfast seminars every month to draw attention to, and to debate, urgent human rights issues. Read more about coming activities.
Newsletters
Civil Rights Defenders newsletter is published quarterly. Read more about our activities in recent months.
Countries
We are active in ten countries in Eastern Europe and Western Balkans and our work expands continuosly. Read more about our work in each country.
Results
Civil Rights Defenders work for people’s civil and political rights – and we achieve concrete results! Read more about our recent results.
Annual Reports
In our Annual Report for 2008 you can read about how our work contributed to Serbia passing a law against discrimination and to Russia being convicted for the hundredth time by the European Court of Justice.