21 March 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of World Down Syndrome Day. For WDSD 2015, Down Syndrome International will focus on: ‘My Opportunities, My Choices’ — Enjoying Full and Equal Rights and the Role of Families".

On 18 March, in  Frankfurt-on-Mein  (Germany), a peaceful protest timed to the ceremonial opening of new European Central Bank headquarters turned into clashes between police and protesters.

Activist of the ‘Anti-Maidan’ protest in Kharkov Spartak Golovachev arrested on 30 April last year in relation to the occupation of the regional administration building has been on hunger strike for more than two weeks. The detainee’s wife says neither Ukrainian authorities nor the prosecutor’s office or local mass media pay any attention to the political prisoner.

10 March 2015, Geneva, — Violence committed in the name of religion does not simply ‘erupt’, but is typically caused by contemporary factors and actors that provide the fertile ground for the seeds of hatred, United Nations human rights expert Heiner Bielefeldt said today during the presentation of his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council.

Amnesty International USA joined a major new lawsuit today filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a broad group of organizations challenging the National Security Agency’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ Internet communications, including emails,  web-browsing  content, and  search-engine  queries.

9 March 2015 — As women thrive, so will humanity but if girls are held back, the whole world will feel the pain,  Secretary-General  Ban  Ki-moon  warned the  high-level  opening of the United Nations body tasked with the promotion of gender quality and the empowerment of women, which also saw the adoption of a political declaration reaffirming commitment to the outcome of the historic 1995 Beijing women’s conference.

3 March 2015 — Three quarters of the world population has no access to proper pain relief treatment, according to a report by the United Nations body charged with overseeing Governments’ compliance with international drug control treaties, which was released in London today.

WARSAW, 27 February 2015 — Two representatives from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights attended a court hearing on 25 February related to the case of Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian Air Force pilot and Member of Parliament charged with complicity in the murder of two Russian journalists near Luhansk, Ukraine, in June 2014. At the hearing, the Moscow City Court reaffirmed that Savchenko should remain in pre-trial detention until 13 May 2015.

On 26 February 2015, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović said recent measures limiting some Russian journalists to fulfil their professional activities in Ukraine are excessive.

(Reuters) — The European Court of Human Rights refused on Tuesday to reconsider its ruling that Poland hosted a secret CIA jail, a decision that will now oblige Warsaw to swiftly hold to account Polish officials who allowed the jail to operate.