Human Rights Moldova ODIHR continued to assist with a trial-monitoring project conducted by the OSCE Mission to Moldova. The project’s first six-month analytical report, “Preliminary Findings on the Experience of Going to Court in Moldova”, was launched with ODIHR’s support in April in Chisinau. The death penalty ODIHR monitors developments regarding the death penalty with the aim of facilitating exchanges of information, increasing transparency, and encouraging compliance with international safeguards. ODIHR produces an annual publication, The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area, which is released at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. This publication provides a comparative overview of the use of the death penalty throughout the OSCE region based primarily on information provided by the participating States. Last year’s publication reflected a trend towards the abolition and reduction in the use of the death penalty: Albania and Kyrgyzstan abolished the death penalty; Kazakhstan, which had been de facto abolitionist, became partly abolitionist; and Moldova, Georgia, and France removed death-penalty provisions from their constitutions. Uzbekistan has since abolished the death penalty as of 1 January 2008. V. Support for human rights defenders and national human rights institutions Focal Point for Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions Building on ongoing work across all of its programmes and in response to one of the recommendations made at the March 2006 Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on “Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions”, ODIHR established a Focal Point for Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). The Focal Point monitors the situation of human rights defenders, identifies issues of concern, and 46 Annual Report 2007 promotes their interests. In addition, the Focal Point undertakes activities aimed at strengthening co-operation between NHRIs and state officials on the one hand and with civil society on the other. The Focal Point has added a new dimension to ODIHR’s monitoring work by closely following the situation of human rights defenders throughout the OSCE region. ODIHR published a report in December called Human Rights Defenders in the OSCE Region: Our Collective Conscience, which highlights threats to, and attacks on, human rights defenders, as well as their freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and right to liberty and freedom of movement throughout the OSCE region. The Focal Point aims to enhance human rights defenders’ knowledge of human rights standards; improve their advocacy, monitoring, and strategy-formulation skills, and also increase their capacity to protect and promote human rights. ODIHR, in co-operation with the OSCE Mission to Moldova and the Human Rights Resource Centre CReDO, conducted a pilot project to train human rights defenders in international standards on freedom of assembly and to build their capacity to monitor and report on freedom of assembly in Moldova. The fiveday training course was conducted in Chisinau in October, and coincided with the Justice Ministry’s elaboration of a draft law on freedom of assembly. Beginning in October, those who underwent the training will monitor assemblies throughout the country for a period of six months, and their observations will be compiled into a report that will be submitted to the Government with the aim of further improving the law and practice relating to freedom of peaceful assembly. Two further training courses were held that were aimed at strengthening co-operation between NHRIs and government and partnerships with civil society. The first of these was held in November in co-operation with the Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia and the OSCE Office in Yerevan. This was followed by a similar event in December in co-operation