UK: HSBC hit by protests at 20 branches over Israeli arms trade links
By the Palestinian BDS National Committee. Protests forced HSBC branches in London and Brighton to close today and protests were held at a total of 20 branches over the bank’s links with arms companies...
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Remembering Nagasaki 72 years after the atomic bomb
Nagasaki Peace Declaration “No more Hibakusha” These words express the heartfelt wish of the Hibakusha that in the future nobody in the world ever again has to experience the disastrous damage caused...
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Global nuclear weapons: Modernization remains the priority
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today launches its annual nuclear forces data, which highlights the current trends and developments in world nuclear arsenals. The data...
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Open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi
As news reports and information circulates about the desperate plight of the Rohingya population of Myanmar and what, on the surface, looks like ethnic cleansing. We publish here the open letter from...
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NZ to sign prohibition of nuclear weapons treaty
Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee announced today New Zealand will sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at a ceremony during the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week....
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Nuclear warhead delivery to Scotland
Press release from the UK campaign group Nukewatch. A nuclear weapons convoy with four warhead carriers left Burghfield early on Monday September 25th taking the M4 and then the A34 around Oxford. It...
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Celebrating a milestone: Russia completes the destruction of chemical weapons...
Dr John Hart for SIPRI. On Wednesday the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü of Turkey, congratulated Russia on completing the...
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The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017
Pressenza is delighted to republish the press statement from the Nobel Prize Committee confirming the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. As a partner...
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The African Union welcomes the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN
Addis Ababa, 7 October 2017: The Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, welcomes the awarding of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Peace to the International Campaign to Abolish...
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Gorbachev: My plea to Trump and Putin
By Mikhail Gorbachev. This letter to the leaders of the USA and Russia was originally published in the Washington Post. This December will mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the treaty...
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Call for an international ban on the weaponization of artificial intelligence
This week, members of the Artificial Intelligence research community exhorted the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, to join the international call to ban lethal autonomous weapons that remove...
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Remembrance Day hypocrisy of British Prime Minister say peace activists
Press release by the UK’s Peace Pledge Union. White poppy wearers have criticised Theresa May for planning to lay a wreath to remember the war dead while pursuing policies that are fuelling war. They...
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Congratulations to Austria – court overturns barriers to equal marriage
We republish this press release from ILGA-Europe. This morning, a judgment from Austria’s Constitutional Court has opened up the option of equal marriage to same-sex couples. The 14 judges of the...
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Nobel Lecture: We must reclaim the freedom to not live our lives as hostages...
Today, Sunday, 10th of December, 2017, ICAN received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in securing a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the network...
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Nobel lecture: Nuclear weapons signify not a country’s elevation to...
Today, Sunday, 10th of December, 2017, ICAN received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in securing a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Setsuko Thurlow, survivor of the Hiroshima bomb on...
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Global arms industry: First rise in arms sales since 2010
We reproduce here the latest press release from the Stockhold International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Sales of arms and military services by the world’s largest arms-producing and military...
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John Scales Avery, The Climate Emergency: Two time scales
Pressenza has recently been contacted by John Scales Avery from the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs to ask for publication of the below text which we gladly do. I am working on a book...
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ICAN in Oslo
Last weekend, ICAN were in Oslo to collect their Nobel Peace Prize. Ralf Schlesener took photos for Pressenza and ICAN at events and behind the scenes at the various activities that took place. We...
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Madrid to host the European Humanist Forum, May 11, 12 and 13, 2018
What unites us towards the Universal Human Nation Ten years after the Milan Forum, European Humanists have relaunched an initiative to bring together diverse organisations and movements from around the...
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WMD out of the Middle East: Achieving the Possible
A preparatory conference was held this week at the Edinburgh City Chambers in which diplomats, experts, academics and civil society representatives with understanding of the Middle East region...
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It is now 2 minutes to midnight!
We republish the press statement, released on the 25th of January, 2018 from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Citing growing nuclear risks and unchecked climate dangers, the iconic Doomsday Clock is...
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What’s behind the European Humanist Forum logo? Solidarity, hope, peace,...
The European Humanist Forum 2018 will take place in Madrid on the 11th, 12th and 13th of May and is an initiative incredibly organised 100% by volunteers who not only have the difficulties of daily...
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I can’t stop thinking about “The Wolfpack” case
Daniela Hirsch, 34, is a Chilean lawyer, lifelong humanist and married with a daughter. If anyone does not know what I am talking about, I am referring to the case of the girl in Spain who was raped by...
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Abolition 2000 Opportunities
On Saturday the 28th of April, representatives of several anti-nuclear organisations and other individuals gathered together in Geneva for the Abolition 2000 AGM. In a section of Challenges and...
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Swiss referendum may change the way money is created in the economy
by Stan Jourdan, for Positive Money Europe* On June 10, Switzerland will be the first country to hold a nationwide referendum on “sovereign money”. Emma Dawnay, board member of the Swiss campaign...
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Joint statement by Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un
Pressenza publishes here the full text of the statement issued by President Trump of the USA and Chairman Kim of North Korea. President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim...
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Hungarian government marks world refugee day by passing law to jail helpers
We publish here the press release from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a non-governmental watchdog organisation that protects human dignity and the rule of law through legal and public advocacy...
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Why Spain could and should Ban the Bomb
This week ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn visits Spain to promote the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, with meetings planned with Spanish members of parliament at a national and...
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City of Hiroshima peace declaration
Today marks the 73rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, which with the bombing of Nagasaki 3 days later, caused the immediate deaths of over 200,000 people, and the subsequent deaths of tens of...
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Nagasaki Peace Declaration
As on the 6th of August we published the Hiroshima Peace Declaration, today is the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing and we publish the Nagasaki Peace Declaration calling on Japan and all other...
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Hungary: Asylum-seekers with inadmissible claims are denied food in detention...
A new ground for inadmissibility, a hybrid of the concepts of safe third country and first country of asylum, has been in effect since 1 July 2018. The new provision stems from amendments to the Asylum...
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Hungary: Illiberal Democracy fails in the European Parliament
By triggering the Article 7 procedure, the European Parliament has made it clear that illiberal democracy is against the core values of the European Union. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee welcomes...
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Hungarian Helsinki Committee takes legal action to challenge the anti-NGO laws
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) filed a complaint with the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the new criminal provision threatening with...
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Hungarian Government shifts to high gear in the persecution of vulnerable groups
Press release of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee on the persecution of homeless people. The Punitive State: if you can’t solve it, ban it! Whenever there’s public dissent or the government finds no...
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400 hours Overtime Act passed by Hungarian Parliament
In what amounts to be the biggest scandal of Hungary’s Parliament since the regime change, the Parliament passed the Overtime Act, often called the Slavery Act by the opposition, effective as of 1...
View ArticleOvertime Act sparks series of intense anti-Orbán protests in Hungary
Today will see the third consecutive day of anti-government protests in Budapest. People are expressing their anger on the street over the Overtime Act (often dubbed “slave law” passed by Parliament...
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Children’s Day at the Mikebuda Study and Reflection Park, Hungary
For more than three years now, children’s days have taken place in the Mikebuda Park of Study and Reflection Park more or less regularly. In December of this year Kriszta Horváth worked with the...
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Hungarian president, János Áder, signs the Overtime Act
The Overtime Act comes into force on 1 January 2019, as President of the Republic János Áder signed the bill the Parliament passed last Wednesday. The amendment of the Labour Law that the Parliament...
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Thousands protest at Hungary’s President of the Republic’s residence days...
Once again, several thousands of people protested Hungary’s government in Budapest on Friday night. The series of protests were sparked by the two laws passed by Parliament last Wednesday on the...
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Hungarian protests call for general strike and a regime change
The wave of protests that started in December resumed last week with several smaller protests all over different towns of Hungary culminating in a larger demonstration in Budapest on Saturday. Not...
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PM Orbán’s much-awaited press conference: “The government cannot comment on...
Prime minister Viktor Orbán held a press conference Thursday morning, making good on his July promise to answer questions by journalists before the end of 2018. In a way, he did. Today was a rare...
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Demonstrations and roadblocks all over Hungary
Saturday afternoon, the series of demonstrations against the Overtime Act continued in Budapest and numerous countryside locations. There were demonstrations or roadblocks in Miskolc, Tatabánya,...
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The constitutional court has failed to protect human right defenders
The Constitutional Court (CC) held today that the Criminal Code amendment by the “Stop Soros” package is constitutional. Although the CC concluded that it would be unacceptable if those who selflessly...
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Stop Killer Robots before it is Too Late!
On June 6, 2019 a kick-off meeting was held at CEU in Budapest organized by CELAB and activists of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots – Hungary, to raise awareness on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems...
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The European Commission sides with refugees and civil society
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee welcomes the decision of the European Commission to refer Hungary to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for what the Hungarian government calls the ’Stop...
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Russia, United States attempt to legitimize killer robots
Russia and the United States are continuing their losing fight against the inevitable treaty that’s coming for killer robots. Most states participating in the diplomatic talks on lethal autonomous...
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Hungary: Emergency Law gives carte blanche powers to government – free media...
The Hungarian Parliament adopted the so-called “Authorization Act”, allowing indefinite government rule by decree. The role of free media and a strong civil society is now more vital than ever to...
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The Nationality of a Virus
By G. M. Tamás[1] As was to be expected, authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe have used the coronavirus epidemic as a pretext to enlarge, to extend, to harden their power and, in the case of...
View ArticleThe refugee who gave hope to other victims
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee made a movie about the Russian asylum-seeker, Alexei Torubarov. His eventful and touching story illustrates how unfairly refugees are demonized. The case of our client...
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Black Lives Matter Demo in Budapest
On June 7, 2020, about one thousand people gathered on Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) in Budapest to express their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in front of the US Embassy. The event...
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