The Human Rights Defender

Over the past few months, Albania's LGBTI+ community has been subject of a hateful smear campaign, with calls for violence against members spread by national television hosts and other influential figures. We sat with Xheni Karaj, from Aleanca LGBT who has been personally targetted and is leading the fightback through the courts.

In the second episode of the #RomaSummit special, we speak with MEP Evin Incir (S&D), who has been a tireless advocate for Roma inclusion from her seat in the European Parliament. Serving as Co-President of the EP's Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup (ARDI), she offers us an important insight into the shortcomings of previous EU-level initiatives, how the new EU-Roma Framework might address these, as well as the challenges that remain to bringing about real institutional change - both in Brussels, and more pressingly, at national level.

In anticipation of the upcoming Western Balkans Roma Summit (17-18 November), we're hosting a mini-series on this podcast, focusing on the the rights and issues of the Roma community. Over the next few episodes, we'll be speaking with EU policymakers, representatives of civil society organisations and grassroots activists tackling anti-gypsyism and promoting the community's rights across the continent. First up, Gabriela Hrabanova of the Brussels-based ERGO network, which represents 30 Roma and pro-Roma organisation working tirelessly on advocating these issues before EU bodies.

On 23 September, Civil Rights Defenders named Russian independent human rights and media project OVD-Info, the Defender of the Year for 2021. Just days later, Russian authorities put OVD-Info on a growing list of civil society organisations labelled as "foreign agents". We caught up with co-founder Daniil Beilinson to hear about the general human rights situation in the country, the project's vital contribution to monitoring police brutality and arrests of peaceful protestors, as well as how the newfound label will impact their work going forward.

It's being hailed as "the story of the year" to impact the privacy and safety of HRDs. Over the past few months, 80 journalists from 17 media organisations have been sifting through a leak of 50,000 phone numbers which may have been compromised by a sophisticated Israeli spyware product. The clients: autocratic regimes snooping on their citizens. The victims: activists and journalists holding power to account. Ilya Lozovsky from the OCCRP offers his insights on this breathtaking investigation.

In early February 2021, Erol Önderoglu was the subject of an international civil society solidarity campaign, facing a 14-year sentence on charges of "terrorism". His crime: supporting independent media which was targetted by Turkey's crackdown on press freedoms. Marking World Press Freedom Day (May 3rd), the Reporters Without Borders representative tells us more about his pending case, the repressive tactics used to since critical outlets, as well as Turkey's cooling interest to achieve justice in the case of Jamal Khashoggi.

It's quite a time to be an LGBTI+ activist in Serbia. Having successfully held consecutive Pride marches since 2014, and preparations under way for Belgrade to host EuroPride in 2022, the community is bracing for landmark legislation which would finally regulate same-sex civil unions. Our guest, Marko Mihailovic, direct from the frontlines of this struggle, shares his thoughts on recent accomplishments and the long road ahead to equality.

BBC Central Europe correspondent, Nick Thorpe, offers us a unique insight into the ways and means of Orban's regime, as well as an overall look at media literacy in the region.

SHARE Foundation's Director of Tech, Andrej Petrovski tells us about the growing challenges to digital rights in the Western Balkans, threats related to surveillance, digital security and other online tips.

(Apologies for the poor sounds quality throughout the interview; we experienced some issues during recording)