About us

The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels (BE) and registered in Dublin (IR). It was created in January 2015.

The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights is the European representation of a coalition of other like-minded NGOs – which includes the Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain – ADHRB (Washington DC, USA), the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights – BCHR (Copenhagen, DK), the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy – BIRD (London, UK) – seeking to promote human rights and democracy in the Gulf region with a particular focus on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

ECDHR is in charge of representing the network at the EU level. It engages with EU institutions, media and other relevant stakeholders in Brussels in order to raise awareness and promote the respect of fundamental human rights in the Gulf region. ECDHR also collaborates closely with other international NGOs and NGO networks committed to the issues of human rights and democracy in the region.

ECDHR Beirut focuses on independence and neutrality of medical services during armed conflicts and civil unrests through the initiative Defenders for Medical Impartiality (DMI).

The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) advocates for the respect of human rights in GCC countries on an impartial and inclusive basis, regardless of political views, religious affiliation, gender or nationality of the victims.

Therefore, we do not advocate for any specific political or religious group, nor for any specific political or religious cause, but we go at lengths in defending and supporting those individuals and groups who suffer violations of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

Our primary goal is to achieve full implementation of obligations governments in the Gulf subscribed to, both through international human rights conventions and their own legislation.

Please consult a non-exhaustive list of causes and cases we are working on here.

Defenders for Medical Impartiality‘s main goals are the following:

• to engage key actors in the international policy and medical community to build a network of support for the international protection of the right to health care in conflict and civil unrest
• to codify the principle of medical impartiality
• to document violations of medical neutrality in conflict and violations of the right to health in civil unrest