Last week Leonidas Donskis, the rapporteur of the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2011 and European Union`s policy on the matter, has presented amendments to his report tabled by the colleagues in the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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On Monday, the most prominent critic of the Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev and the leader of the opposition party Alga! Vladimir Kozlov was found guilty by the Aktau City Court of “inciting social discord” organizing the protests of the oil workers in Zhanaozen last December and “calling for the forcible overthrow of the constitutional order". V. Kozlov has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison with the confiscation of property. Two other opposition members trialled together with him were released and given suspended sentences.
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From last Thursday to Saturday Leonidas Donskis did not have any free minute on his schedule. In three days, the Member of the European Parliament together with his team has travelled more than 1000 kilometres in Lithuania and has visited even ten Lithuanian towns: Kalvarija, Marijampolė, Kaunas, Planga, Kretinga, Klaipėda, Šilutė, Rokiškis, Panevėžys and Anykščiai.

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Leonidas Donskis, the rapporteur of the annual report on Human Rights in the World 2011 and EU policies in this field, has finished the draft resolution and last week presented it to the Members of the EU Parliament working in the Subcommittee on Human Rights. The record of the presentation can be found here. (Read more...)

Leonidas Donskis together with the Polish Member of the Parliament Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP) and another 82 members of the European Parliament from different countries and EP political groups have nominated the Belarusian dissident, the Chair of Belarusian Human Rights Centre Viasna and the Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights Ales Bialiatski for the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

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Leonidas Donskis returned to problems in Kazakhstan as he started the fourth year of his term at the EP. Together with colleague MEPs from the other EP political groups he wrote to the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev concerning the persecution of opposition representatives. On Tuesday he also met with the representatives from the opposition and non-governmental organisations. (Read more...)