The UN Human Rights Council will begin a new review process on April 7, 2008. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is the most innovative and ambitious instrument of the council and was set up to assess the human rights performance of all 192 UN member states over a four-year cycle.

The Central Intelligence Agency secretly operated illegal prisons for terrorism suspects in multiple locations in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005, according to a report released today by the Council of Europe, a European intergovernmental human rights body.

The Polish government’s proposed legislation to censor all discussion of homosexuality in schools and other academic institutions would violate freedom of speech and impede free access to information, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

The European Parliament should condemn European complicity in the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program of “extraordinary renditions” and secret detention of prisoners, Human Rights Watch said today.

A new report by the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on illegal CIA activity in Europe is a powerful indictment of European governments’ complicity in CIA abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

Recent threats by Polish officials against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and organizations threaten everyone’s basic freedoms, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

As a new government in Poland brings to power officials with long records of opposing gay and lesbian rights, it is more important than ever for the country’s leadership to affirm all citizens’ equality, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Eighteen countries destroyed their stockpiles of antipersonnel mines in the past year, according to the annual global report by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), released today in Washington, D.C.