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Belarus Human Rights Situation in Belarus in 2020

January 11, 2021

Viasna released a new report on the human rights situation in Belarus in 2020. The report states that the 2020 repressions are unprecedented for the entire history of Belarus and testify to the profound human rights crisis in the country.

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Hungary Electoral code amended, concerns about further changes remain

December 18, 2020

Ahead of the upcoming 2022 parliamentary elections, the Hungarian governing coalition passed an amendment to the country’s electoral code introducing stricter conditions for parties to register national lists in the elections, which in practical terms seems to be forcing the parties of the democratic opposition to run on one joint party list. While adjustments to the electoral map were anticipated and are slowly overdue, the governing parties voted against the politically neutral proposal filed by the opposition that addressed the issue. This raises concerns about prospective gerrymandering.

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Georgia Post-Election political standstill, flawed electoral complaint practices, and the one-party parliament

December 17, 2020

The second round of elections cemented the victory of the Georgian Dream (GD). Despite the opposition boycotting the elections, violations persisted. The first session of the Parliament convened in absence of the opposition and parties saw some annulling of their mandates. The DG pledge for an early election if there was one percent deviation in its favour, did not go forward. The statistical analysis partially corroborated the observers’ findings, highlighting trends of discrepancies. The court practices also indicated political bias and undue consideration of complaints and appeals.

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EPDE EPDE Condemns Killing of Mohammad Yousuf Rasheed

EPDE condemns the murder of Mohammad Yousuf Rasheed, the Executive Director of the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), a fellow GNDEM member organization from Afghanistan. In his role as Executive Director of FEFA, a non-partisan civil society organization that works to advance Afghan democracy and electoral integrity, Rasheed was a critical voice and valued contributor to the country’s work on democracy and human rights.

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Belarus Final observation report shows electoral process did not comply with international standards

The electoral process at all its stages did not comply with a number of basic international standards for holding democratic and fair elections and was accompanied by numerous violations of these principles and provisions of national legislation. Significant violations, including the deprivation of observers of the opportunity to observe the counting of voting results, does not give grounds to trust the election results announced by the CEC.

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Russia Foreign agents law expanded ahead of 2021 State Duma election

Recently proposed amendments to the ‘foreign agents’ law in Russia would increase the number of organizations at risk of being labelled as ‘foreign agents’ and would force election candidates who received funding or other resources from an organization or person registered as a ‘foreign agent’ to also label themselves as a ‘foreign agent’. There is serious reason to assume that the recent proposed amendments target specific individuals and organizations and have been drawn up at least in part with a view to the 2021 State Duma election.

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Georgia UPDATE: Results of parallel vote tabulation

Following an internal audit of the results of the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) of the October 31 Parliamentary elections, ISFED released an update of their PVT result. The correction insignificantly altered the percentage points of votes received by the electoral subjects and the difference does not change the number of mandates secured by the electoral subjects.

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Belarus Post-election detainees deprived of the right to a fair trial - finds new report

In a recently released report by a coalition of Belarusian human rights defenders, experts concluded that the protesters detained en masse on 9-12 August were deprived of the right to a fair trial. This is confirmed not only by the testimonies of people, but also by procedural and medical documents. The human rights defenders once again deplore the absence of legislatively defined safeguards against torture, which, in their opinion, continues to result in impunity.

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