NEWS

The humanitarian situation in flooded Pakistan is cause for great concern. Relations of Justice and Peace are active in emergency aid and relief operations in what is now deemed the worst natural disaster in the history of Pakistan.

Justice and Peace Netherlands is protesting against the arbitrary arrest of five human rights defenders of its Indian partners Dalit Foundation (DF) and People’s Watch (PW).

The DDR programme implemented in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) so far has been accessed by women only to a very limited extent. Justitia et Pax Netherlands has looked at the reasons for this in its research project ‘Beyond Men and Guns: making DDR work for men and women alike in the Democratic Republic of Congo’.

This autumn Justitia et Pax Netherlands is developing a toolkit for training of trainers. This toolkit will be available in English and French in December 2010.

Justitia et Pax organizes an international workshop on Defending Human Rights from 8–10 December in The Hague. Human right defenders from different parts of the world will share their experiences in order to specify their concrete needs, with special attention to the different needs of men and of women.

European human rights organisations, including Justitia et Pax Netherlands, welcome the EU-Indonesia human rights dialogue. They have spoken out on the agenda for this first-time event which took place in Jakarta on 29th June.

African bishops look to European Justice and Peace commissions for support to the Africa Synod message and for taking up issues in their countries which are hampering the progress of Africa. From March 9 - 16 they spoke with experts on justice and peace in a meeting in The Hague.

On June 9 the Dutch general elections took place. The results confirm a trend of political fragmentation and polarisation in the Netherlands. As a result, forming a government with a majority support in parliament will be extremely difficult.