Tag: civil society

Joint submission of the civil society coalition regarding the Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering and terrorist financing Can the EU’s anti-money laundering reform help dictators? As the European Union gets closer to adopting […]

The Open Dialogue Foundation and MP Constantinos Efstathiou (Cyprus, SOC) organise a side event at the upcoming session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 26 January 2023. The discussion titled Misuse of the Anti-Money Laundering Measures (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations as a tool of transnational repression will take place in Room 3 at the premises of Palais de l’Europe (the headquarter of the Council of Europe) at 1 p.m. in Strasbourg.

In the weeks of 26 September – 7 October the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) held its 2022 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, serving as a summit, or plenary session, of the OSCE’s human rights institution. The conference was attended by OSCE […]

The Open Dialogue Foundation and 57 other NGOs urge the U.S. Congress to address Russian crimes in Ukraine by supporting a robust reauthorisation of the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016. On 23 March 2022, a number of nongovernmental organisations wrote to leaders in the United States Congress urging a reauthorisation of the Global Magnitsky Human […]

The appeal was published on March 14 https://zmina.ua/statements/mizhnarodni-struktury-mayut-zahystyty-ukrayincziv-vid-vykraden-ta-strat-gromadskist/ Official addresses of the institutions to which we appeal:[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]@[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]  APPEAL to the international community on abductions and executions of Ukrainian activists, journalists, and local government officials in Russian-occupied territories We, representatives of Ukrainian NGOs, appeal to the international community in connection with the abductions and executions […]

On 3 September 2021, within the framework of the Eastern Economic Forum, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin and head of the Russian SBER group of companies (SBER) German Gref [German Gref, the head of SBER, has been close to Putin since his work in St-Petersburg. Gref was mentioned in the Pandora papers scandal with his offshores in Singapore, Panama and Samoa] signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on Digital Transformation Projects for the Republic of Kazakhstan, Transition to the Platform-Based Digitalisation Model and the Data Driven Government Concept. The Memorandum was approved by the Decree of the Government of Kazakhstan on the same day. Pursuant to the Memorandum, SBER will create, implement and support a single centralised digital platform (GovTech) for all electronic state services in Kazakhstan to replace Kazakhstan’s existing e-government platforms (united by the website – https://egov.kz/cms/en). As of today, over 80% of state services are available on egov.kz. 

Since the Law and Justice (PiS)-led United Right coalition (composed of PiS and its two minor partners – Solidarna Polska and Porozumienie) took power in 2015, we have witnessed an unprecedented level of politicization of the public prosecution service that has been transformed into a tool serving political and personal interests of the ruling camp and its members. This resulted in a growing number of politically motivated cases of investigations carried out against those regarded as opponents of the government. The continuous changes to the criminal justice system (Criminal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, Law on the Prosecutor’s Service) expand the powers of the prosecution, amplifying the so-called inequality of arms between the sides of the criminal proceedings and a general repressiveness of the system.

On 12-13 July our representative Maksym Sytnikov participated at the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting (SHDM). SHDM is a platform for the OSCE Participating States and civil society to discuss progress made by the former in implementing OSCE commitments. The latest meeting was devoted to Digital Technologies and Human Rights. During the first session Maksym […]

On 15 December 2020, The Open Dialogue Foundation signed a joint statement together with 10 other NGOs demanding relevant bodies of the EU to examine the current situation in Turkey in the context of the Global Human Rights Sanction regime and to impose sanctions on those who violate human rights in the country. The Arrested Lawyers Initiative, a volunteer organisation defending prosecuted lawyers and human rights defenders, initiated the joint statement.

On 12 November 2020, the FightBack legal self-help chat-bot was presented in Kyiv, which was designed to provide free assistance to victims of law enforcement agencies’ inaction and to collect information about the cases of inaction. The chat-bot was created as a result of a series of interviews with activists who were victims of violent attacks in different regions of Ukraine after 2014.

The Open Dialogue Foundation continues to reiterate its support in advancing the implementation and enforcement of Global Magnitsky sanctions in Europe and overseas. Therefore, together with other 50 leading human rights organisations, ODF has signed a series of letters addressed to the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees in support of continued congressional funding for this powerful foreign policy tool.

We, human rights organisations, call upon law enforcement authorities to investigate fairly the circumstances of attacks on Serhiy Sternenko. We would also ask politicians, officials and other parties not involved in the proceedings to refrain from interfering in the investigation.

Statement on the COVID-19 in closed prisons in the occupied Crimea and Donbas which is under Russia’s effective control. An immediate response from international organizations is required.

There has been great success for the action organised by the Open Dialogue Foundation and Niskie Składki (Low Contributions) and Spontaniczny Sztab Obywatelski (Spontaneous Civic Staff) associations with the support of Patryk Wachowiec from the FOR (Civil Development Forum) Foundation. In the face of the epidemic in Poland, we have raised PLN 500,763 for meals for the health care workers who are tirelessly fighting the spread of coronavirus and helping those infected.

In its letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Open Dialogue Foundation, along with other civil society organisations, appeals to the Polish authorities for aid for refugees and, thus, fulfil their international obligations.