Hetq Editor-in-Chief Edik Baghdasaryan is in Dublin, Ireland, to participate in a three day conference of human rights activists organized by the Dublin-based organization Front Line. The biannual conference brings together activists and campaigners working on issues ranging from the rights of women, indigenous people and sexual minorities, to environmental protection and land rights. Yesterday’s session heard testimony from human rights defenders who have been threatened, harassed, jailed and tortured because of their work. The Front Line Dublin Platform, as the conference is dubbed, issued a report noting that, "Despite the high level of commitment given to the protection of human rights defenders in theory, the sad reality is that the effective space for human rights defenders to work is steadily shrinking." Launching the report yesterday, Margaret Sekkagya, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said that "those who fight every day for the full respect of human rights continue to be oppressed".