The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights supports human rights defenders from across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Between September 2022 and December 2023he Human Rights Hub provided support to 352 human rights defenders who had to leave their country of origin out of fear for their freedom and health. The Foundation has helped them continue to protect human rights and promote democratic values in their countries from abroad.
The Human Rights Hub is a programme run by the Eurasia Unit of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, based on years of experience supporting human rights defenders driven out of their countries by authoritarian governments. From 2015 to September 2022, the Eurasia Division supported 265 people.
The support provided within the HR Hub is divided into short-term and long-term support. The former focuses on enabling human rights defenders to rebuild their strengths after being forced to leave their homeland and stabilise their living situation. All this is done to support them in the next step to continue their work for the civil society in the country from which they were sent to safety in Poland. Longer-term support focuses on broadening the competencies of human rights defenders and stabilising their activities from Poland - our role in this aspect involves creating a space where human rights defenders coming to Poland can share their experiences with representatives of Polish civil society or deepen the Polish perspective on understanding the situation in their country of origin. Ultimately, we also understand the broadening of competencies as preparation for change in the countries of the human rights defenders we support, as soon as such change is possible.
