For more information visit www.spidh.org

Representative from the International Permanent Secretariat of Human Rights and Local Goverments (SPIDH)

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Yesterday marked the official opening of the 3rd Forum on Human Rights, an international forum with more than 2,000 human rights activists and academics from around the world. Before the official opening that took place at 6:30pm, there were a series of pre-forum meetings. One of these meetings was the General Meeting and Public Conference of the World Coaltion Against the Death Penalty in which member organization representative, Renny Cushing (Murder Victims¹ Families for Human Rights), spoke about the challenges on organizing in the United States, the numbers of individuals on death row, and the need to view death penalty as a human rights issue. This was followed by an array of demonstrations outside of the Nantes International Convention Center around democracy, freedom and human rights. The official opening was very male dominated, while there were 18 individuals representing human rights organizations, both at the govermental as in the non-govermental level, only 5 of those were women. During the opening Pierre Sane, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Social and Human Sciences launched the International Coalition of Cities against Racism. This new coalition has as its aim to implement an established plan of action at a local level using a human rights framework. For more information, keep on visiting the US Human Rights Network page, where we will be bringing you more news and update as the conference proceeds, and please visit www.spidh.org to view the full program.
-Janvieve Williams Comrie