5th March 2012 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a busy week. With our Ministers in town for the Council’s High level Segment, we’ve all been suffering from higher than average stress levels. Many Ministers chose to use their statements to focus on the appalling violations in Syria, which the Council addressed in an urgent debate on Tuesday. Council members spoke out […]
26th January 2012
Back in July 2010 I wrote a blog called How to stop censorship in Ukraine. Based on a discussion with journalists, I noted both areas for concern and some areas for optimism; and observed that freedom of the media would be critical for Ukraine’s relationship with the EU because the Copenhagen criteria, which set out […]
20th January 2012
In a recent blog “Is Ukraine democratic?” I noted an “Economist”, report, The Democracy Index 2011 (pdf file), which showed Ukraine’s democratic ranking falling from 67th in 2010 to 79th in 2011 out of 167 countries. I noted that we should not read too much into a single report; and said it would be interesting […]
Read more on Moldova overtakes Ukraine in Freedom House rankings | Reply
24th January 2011
Which is the country which is most free in the CIS? Can we say confidently that it is Ukraine? Or how about a new pretender to that crown – Moldova? There are many ways to measure freedom, some more objective than others. As I noted in a recent blog on human rights, one can often […]
9th December 2010
In the mid 1970s I flew from London to Johannesburg via Madrid in order to get the cheapest fare. During the stopover at Madrid airport I was waiting to buy a newspaper at a shop when I was elbowed out of the way by an immensely solid Guardia Civil officer in a shiny black hat […]
7th July 2010
Is there a risk of an upsurge in censorship in Ukraine? If there is, what can Ukrainians do about it? And what if anything should outsiders such as foreign governments and diplomats be doing? These are all questions which come up when I host a lunch at the Residence for Ukrainian journalists and media activists. […]
18th February 2010
A guest blog by Svitlana Yavorska, Head of Projects Section, British Embassy Kyiv Breaking racial and ethnic stereotyping is vital in every country. So it was good to attend a press conference this week to mark the completion of a project funded by the Embassy to help Ukraine’s police forces, or militia, reach European best […]
Read more on Ukrainian militia, Euro 2012 and human rights: are they compatible? | Reply (1)
5th February 2010
As Ukraine moves closer to the decisive second round of the presidential election on 7 February the words of the European Commission after the first round might seem a distant memory. In a statement on 18 January, the Commission welcomed the fact that the first round of the elections on 17 January “took place in […]
Read more on More good news about electoral fraud – Dr Pangloss speaks? | Reply
16th November 2009
One disadvantage of the Ukrainian election campaign is that a long-standing series of “Ukraine Says No to Racism” posters on the way to my nearest tube station has been covered up with pictures of presidential candidates. That’s a pity, because today is International Day of Tolerance, a theme which I see the Interparliamentary Union recently […]