Launch of the new website of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project/Network has launched a new website at http://www.defenddefenders.org. The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) seeks to strengthen the work of human rights defenders (HRDs) throughout the region by reducing their vulnerability to the risk of persecution and by enhancing their capacity to effectively defend human rights.

Further Information

EHAHRDP focuses its work on Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia (together with Somaliland), Sudan (together with South Sudan), Tanzania and Uganda. As of 2008 it also includes Rwanda and Burundi into its scope given their recent adhesion to the East African Community.

Many countries in this sub-region have experienced massive human rights abuses, long-term and large-scale impunity, single-party and military dictatorships, civil wars, and in the case of Somalia, a collapsed state; such situations and contexts render both the work and lives of human rights defenders particularly challenging.