In her thematic report the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, underlines the rights of migrants to have access to and effectively participate in all aspects of cultural lives, both of the host State and their own cultures: “Migration  enables individuals, both migrants and the host population, to reevaluate their cultural frameworks and be positively influenced by other ideas, values and practices. In that process, States must be aware of the vulnerabilities of migrants and take measures to enable them to enjoy their cultural rights, irrespective of their status.”

The report has been introduced in February 2023 and is now available in all 5 UN languages.

The HRW World report looks at the state of human rights and covers nearly 100 countries. Besides the crises arise and authoritarian governments deepen their assault on human rights, HRW’s Acting Executive Director Tirana Hassan writes that 2022 revealed a “fundamental shift in power in the world that opens the way for all concerned governments to push back against…abuses by protecting and strengthening the global human rights system.”

The 712-page world report can be downloaded in total or browsed by country at the HRW website.

Artists at Risk Connection in partnership with regional and global networks continues regional reports on artistic freedom, based on closed workshops with artists, human rights defenders, and cultural practitioners from the respective region. After Connecting the Dots (Asian region) now Art in Turmoil: Artistic Freedom and Human Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean has been released, with Amnesty International and Labo Ciudadano.

In November We Have Always Had To Fight: African Artists on Human Rights and Artistic Freedom was released in cooperation with  Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (SouthernDefenders).

Downloads via ARC’s website:
We Have Always Had To Fight,
Art in Turmoil (English and Spanish)

 PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), in partnership with the Mekong Cultural Hub (MCH) and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM ASIA) have released a publication, which captures growing anxiety among artists and creative practitioners across South, Southeast, East, and Central Asia.

Connecting the Dots explores questions that are critical to understanding the state of artistic freedom in Asia, through the lens of 25 artists, creative practitioners, human rights defenders, lawyers and other stakeholders coming from 19 countries in South, Southeast, East, and Central Asia. It presents key discussions, findings, and recommendations from a closed virtual workshop convened in November 2021 and shares powerful anecdotal references from the participants, including a Uyghur musician and activist, a Vietnamese filmmaker, and a Myanmar artist – whose identities are kept confidential for security reasons.

Source: Artists at Risk Connection