Scientific research is not always free and independent. Scientists, too, can have their work impeded and be victims of human rights violations. Such cases are taken up by the „International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies” (IHRN). This will be the first time that the biennial meeting of the network will take place at the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Halle (Saale). The academy representatives will confer about current cases of human rights violations in the field of science and discuss strategies for dealing with them.

On the first day, Monday 26 May, the meeting of the „International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies” (IHRN) will be open to the public. Among other things, the program will include the human rights situation in the science communities of Turkey, Syria and Tunisia. The keynote address will be given by Sir Richard J. Roberts, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The British-American biochemist and molecular biologist will speak to the issue of how to convince Nobel Laureates to advocate for the protection of human rights.

The IHRN was founded in 1993. In the meantime the network consists of around 70 academies and scholarly societies from every continent. The Leopoldina established its own Human Rights Committee (HRC) in 2001 and it has been a member of the IHRN since July 2003. The human rights network as well as the individual academy members work proactively on behalf of persecuted scientists and, through the release of commensurate position statements or through prison visits, admonish the responsible governments to respect human rights. As a result, there have indeed been cases of prison conditions being improved and even releases being obtained.