Human Rights

On April 19, 1943, Jews condemned to death in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in an unprecedented heroic struggle against the German occupation. The commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the ghetto uprising is approaching. Joanna Maria Stolarek, director of the Warsaw office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation spoke with Zygmunt Stępiński, director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in Warsaw about the commemoration, the nature of remembrance, and the universal message that the uprising and its commemoration bring.

Gendered disinformation online silences women in the public sphere. The disinformation and democratization expert Nina Jankowicz explains how.   

On 10 March 2022, the politicised Constitutional Tribunal (CT) ruled that Article 6(1) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantees everyone the right to a fair trial, is incompatible with the Polish Constitution.

In March 2020, the OECD Global Forum on Environment focused on "Mainstreaming Gender and Empowering Women for Environmental Sustainability". This summary report on the OECD-Forum highlights selected environment-related sectors and policies, and how they should be discussed from a gender-responsive perspective.

Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine is a tragedy on an unprecedented scale. The struggle for independence of the Ukrainian society will go down in history, and the heroism and determination of the resistance movement will be remembered by successive generations of Europeans. 

This is not just ‘Poland being Poland’. These actions are illegal, inhumane and could spread across Europe – and this is just the beginning.

In the shadows of the Covid-19-crisis, refugees and irregular migrants in Europe’s neighbouring countries are afraid for their very existence and terrified of long-term detention in reception camps. In Tunisia, political provisions are being put into place and emergency plans negotiated to deal with migrants and refugees on their way to Europe.

The new online course on masculinity has now been released in a version with English subtitles, making the cooperation project of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Moscow available internationally to anyone interested.

Polish farmers should not be afraid of the Green Deal, nor of the pro-ecological solutions being planned for the EU’s agricultural policy, because they are an opportunity for them, not a threat, argues Janusz Wojciechowski, EU Commissioner for Agriculture during a Citizens' Dialogue. He believes that the epidemic has shown highly intensive agriculture to be more susceptible to crises. The online meeting with the public was held on April 30.

The crisis associated with the Covid19 pandemic has a gender, and clearly shows social inequalities of all kinds. It particularly affects women, as well as disadvantaged and variously marginalised groups. There are also attempts to exploit the pandemic for short-term political goals directly targeting women's rights.