South-Caucasian human rights activists to launch broad-scale campaign in EU embassies

On December 10, the Day of Human Rights Defender, 30 human rights organizations from the countries of South Caucasus prepare to hold a campaign entitled "Lobbing the European Union's Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders".

As reported by Anna Natsvlishvili, an employee of the Georgian human rights organization "Centre for Human Rights", 30 organizations-members of the working network covering Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia will hold a broad-scale action: presentation of the edition "Diplomat's Handbook" and polling the embassies of the EU countries in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

"The 'Diplomat's Handbook' will include several documents. First of all, the EU Guidelines as such, intended for the offices of the European Commission and diplomats from the EU countries with the aim to support human rights activists in the countries of the CIS, Caucasus, Asia and Africa," Ms Natsvlishvili explained in her conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Besides, the edition will include the UN Declaration on Human Rights Organizations and the 2006 Resolution of the Council of Europe on Human Rights Activists. This brochure will be disseminated among the embassies of the EU countries together with the questionnaires on how they execute the provision of the EU-Guidelines.

The questionnaires were prepared in partnership with the organizations "House of Human Rights - Voronezh" and the international organization Frontline (with its headquarters in Dublin).

After receiving responses from the embassies, as human rights activists plan, the active phase of the project will start. They will hold meetings with embassy people and seminars for human rights activists in the regions of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.