Martin Ennals Award
Martin Ennals Award
The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, often called "the Nobel Prize for human rights," is an annual prize established in 1993. It honors and protects individuals globally who display exceptional courage in defending human rights.Its chief aim is "protective publicity": using international media and online advocacy to focus attention on defenders whose lives are at risk. The Award is named after the late Martin Ennals, former Secretary-General of Amnesty International.The prize includes a significant financial award to support the recipient's vital work. The winner is selected by a prestigious Jury composed of representatives from ten of the world’s foremost human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, ensuring high credibility and global impact.
| Sl | Name | Country | Flag | Year | Awarded For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov | Tajikistan | 2024 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 37 | Zholia Parsi | Afghanistan | 2024 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 36 | Feliciano Reyna | Venezuela | 2023 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 35 | Delphine Djiraibe | Chad | 2023 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 34 | Khurram Parvez | India | 2023 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 33 | Pham Doan Trang | Vietnam | 2022 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 32 | Dr. Daouda Diallo | Burkina Faso | 2022 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 31 | Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja | Bahrain | 2022 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 30 | Yu Wensheng | China | 2021 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 29 | Huda Al-Sarari | Yemen | 2020 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 28 | Abdul Aziz Muhamat | Sudan | 2019 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 27 | Mohamed Zaree | Egypt | 2017 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 26 | Ilham Tohti | China | 2016 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 25 | Ahmed Mansoor | UAE | 2015 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 24 | Alejandra Ancheita | Mexico | 2014 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 23 | Joint Mobile Group | Russia | 2013 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 22 | Luon Sovath | Cambodia | 2012 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 21 | Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera | Uganda | 2011 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 20 | Muhannad Al-Hassani | Syria | 2010 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 19 | Emadeddin Baghi | Iran | 2009 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 18 | Mutabar Tadjibaeva | Uzbekistan | 2008 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 17 | Pierre Claver Mbonimpa | Burundi | 2007 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 16 | Kopalasingham Sritharan | Sri Lanka | 2007 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 15 | Rajan Hoole | Sri Lanka | 2007 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 14 | Arnold Tsunga | Zimbabwe | 2006 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 13 | Akbar Ganji | Iran | 2006 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 12 | Aktham Naisse | Syria | 2005 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 11 | Lidia Yusupova | Russia | 2004 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 10 | Alirio Uribe Muñoz | Colombia | 2003 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 9 | Jacqueline Moudeina | Chad | 2002 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 8 | Peace Brigades International | International | 2001 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 7 | Immaculée Birhaheka | Congo | 2000 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 6 | Natasha Kandic | Serbia | 1999 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 5 | Eyad El Sarraj | Palestine | 1998 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 4 | Samuel Ruiz Garcia | Mexico | 1997 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 3 | Clement Nwankwo | Nigeria | 1996 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 2 | Asma Jahangir | Pakistan | 1995 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. | |
| 1 | Harry Wu | China | 1994 | demonstrated exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights. |
Martin Ennals Award Laureates (2030 ~ 2021)
Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov
Martin Ennals Award 2024
Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov is a prominent human rights defender from the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), Tajikistan. One of the only 873 lawyers left for a population 10 million inhabitants, he is respected for his work as Director of the Lawyers Association of Pamir (LAP), one of the few civil society organisations in the GBAO liquidated in December 2022, and as a member of the Civil Society Coalition against Torture and Impunity in Tajikistan, the Public Council on Police Reform and the Coalition on Housing Rights.In a context of heightened tensions and militarization of the region by central authorities, Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov , as part of Commission 44, ensured the mediation between the authorities and the Pamiri population – the minority living in the GBAO that represents about 4% of the population in Tajikistan, and monitored the investigation into extensive police brutality and the death of youth leader Gulbiddin Ziyobekov and two protesters in November 2021. Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov, as part of a group of 6 civil society representatives, also supported investigators from the Office of the General Prosecutor in a visit to the GBAO during which was uncovered forensic evidence that Gulbiddin Ziyobekov was killed unlawfully by security forces. The results of the investigation were never communicated officially, and authorities have instead shown hostility and denial over the allegations.Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov was arrested on 28 May 2022, after being invited for an informal conversation at the Khorog Prosecutor’s Office, together with two other members of Commission 44. The case against him was classified as a State secret, for which the disclosure of information leads to criminal liability. The trial was held behind closed doors in a pretrial detention center, without access to his lawyer or the evidence used against him, in violation of any free and fair judicial proceedings. He is serving a 16 year-long prison sentence, in a prison far from away his family, in conditions concerning for his well-being.A statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office on 26 January 2023 announced that the Supreme Court found him guilty of establishing a criminal association and an extremist organization, under articles 187 (1), 307 (3) (1) of the Criminal Code. Several international experts and bodies, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, concluded that his detention is arbitrary and called for his immediate and unconditional release. The articles he is charged under relate to terrorism under a broad definition by the Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on Counteracting Terrorism. They have been widely used to silence critics of State policies in the region.
Zholia Parsi
Martin Ennals Award 2024
The Taliban takeover in August 2021 ended the career of Zholia Parsi as a Farsi language teacher in Kabul. The restrictions aimed at erasing women from public space, advising them to stay at home, also compelled her daughters to discontinue their education. She decided to defy the Taliban despite enormous risks and showed exceptional leadership by founding the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women (SMAW) and organising numerous protests in public spaces, at first with her friends then quickly rallying more women and communities to their cause, in Kabul and other provinces.During these protests against gender apartheid, women protesters were greatly outnumbered by armed Taliban, who subjected them to verbal abuse, intimidation and at times direct attacks. Women were also arrested for protesting, during the protests and afterwards.With the brutal repression of street protest, the SMAW started to coordinate indoor and online protests, and to engage in both domestic and international mobilisation, issuing statements and sending information of their daily lives abroad to shed light on the reality of life under the Taliban. The SMAW grew momentum in Kabul and other provinces, now counting 180 members and having mobilized communities to resist the Taliban’s policies and practices.Zholia Parsi was arrested in the street by armed Taliban in September 2023, a bag put on her head and forced in a car, then detained along with her son. In a judicial system forcefully subjected to a repressive interpretation of Shari’a law, she was held in a detention center, without access to a lawyer and without family visits. She was subjected to torture and ill-treatment during three months before she was released.Members of the SMAW have faced intimidation and been subjected to unlawful use of force, arbitrary arrests, and detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment. At least 8 members of the SMAW have been abducted and imprisoned since its establishment.Forced to live in exile since her release, Zholia Parsi has continued her advocacy and to organise indoor protests in difference parts of Afghanistan.The SMAW demands the end of gender apartheid and the reversal of the more than 50 edicts and decrees of the Taliban that are discriminatory against women; the immediate and unconditional release of persons detained or disappeared as a result of their human rights activities; accountability for gross human rights violations and that the international community does not recognise nor normalise relations with the Taliban.
Feliciano Reyna
Martin Ennals Award 2023
Losing his partner, Rafael, to AIDS, was a life-changing blow for Feliciano Reyna. Originally trained and recognized as an architect, both in the USA and in Venezuela, in 1995 he decided to launch Acción Solidaria, an organization which promotes the rights to healthcare, equality, and non-discrimination of Venezuelans living with HIV & AIDS. Accion Solidaria began providing medication and treatment for HIV/AIDS as well as building awareness in a country where corruption and poverty were rising dramatically and the healthcare system declining. What started as a single center in Caracas, developed into a network of AIDS Service Organizations throughout the country. In 2000, Acción Solidaria became a member of Sinergia, the Venezuelan Association of Civil Society Organizations, and in 2003, together with other human rights advocates, Mr. Reyna founded CODEVIDA, the Coalition of Venezuelan organizations for the rights to health and to life of those affected by chronic health conditions. He also serves on a number of boards of international NGOs such as CIVICUS.As Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crisis unfolded, despite being repeatedly threatened, and harassed, Mr. Reyna chose to remain in his country to fight for human rights. He is convinced that grassroots organizations can play a crucial role in raising international awareness regarding the widespread suffering of the Venezuelan people in a country where corruption, social violence, and lack of freedom of expression have become the norm and the population is deprived of many basic necessities, including food, education, and healthcare.Working closely with UN human rights mechanisms since 2006, Feliciano Reyna was instrumental in establishing the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela to assess alleged human rights violations committed in the country since 2014. Despite challenges faced over the years, Mr. Reyna continues to dialogue with the Venezuelan authorities in the hope of a better future for his country: “I’m talking and will continue to talk to those in power today, here in Venezuela, who have cost so much suffering to the Venezuelan people, but who, at least in my thinking, have in their hands also the possibilities of reversing this. “
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Delphine Djiraibe
Martin Ennals Award 2023
Internationally recognized as one of Chad’s most prominent human rights lawyers and one of the first female lawyers in her country, Delphine Djiraibé takes pride in being a pioneer of the movement for human rights, dignity, and equality in Chad. For over 30 years, despite ongoing intimidation and threats, she relentlessly challenged the authorities to secure basic rights for all Chadians, including the right to life, justice, freedom of opinion, food, education and health.Ms Djiraibé is renowned for initiating the prosecution of Chad’s former dictator, Hissène Habré, who was convicted for war crimes after 14 long years, in 2016. She also created a network of civil society organizations to advocate for the peace and reconciliation process.As the head of the non-governmental organization Public Interest Law Center (PILC), which provides legal assistance, in particular to women and children, as well as training, she raises awareness amongst the population about their rights. To date, PILC has trained over 220 volunteer paralegals in 14 areas of the country. Intent on having all human rights violations denounced, Ms. Djiraibé documents abuses, gives legal advice, and represents many cases in court pro bono. A role model for several women’s rights activists’ networks in Chad and abroad, Ms. Djiraibé is a strong defender of women’s and girls’ rights and actively fights to combat gender-based violence.Delphine Djiraibé was also involved in holding the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project to account. By raising awareness and gaining support at the international level, she succeeded in persuading the oil companies and the World Bank to carry out an effective and responsible distribution of oil revenues.Ms. Djiraibé is determined to build the rule of law and offer justice to Chadians, one case at a time. Decades of threats and harassment have not deterred her from fulfilling the mission she so strongly believes in.Delphine’s outstanding work earned her the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2004, the French National Order of Merit in the rank of officer in 2014, and the Franco-German Human Rights and the Rule of Law Prize in 2019.
Khurram Parvez
Martin Ennals Award 2023
Khurram Parvez’s life mission as a human rights activist was mapped out when, as a young boy he witnessed the tragic shooting of his grandfather at a protest. He could have sought revenge, but instead chose to contribute nonviolently to the 70-year conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, allegedly the most militarized region in the world.Founder and Programme Coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and the Chair of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, a collective of 13 non-governmental organisations from ten Asian countries, Khurram Parvez relentlessly investigated and reported on violations in Kashmir, including the indefinite detention and extrajudicial execution of activists, torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and widespread impunity. Despite facing repression and attacks by State and non-State actors, he courageously continued to denounce violations of rights and became an inspiration to young Kashmiris as well as students from India and abroad whom he encouraged to seek peaceful conflict resolution. He also engaged with the United Nations and other international organisations to develop global solidarity for Kashmiris.In 2004, Parvez’s left leg was amputated due to a landmine injury he suffered while monitoring the parliamentary elections. In 2016, he was banned from travelling to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, and was then arrested for 76 days.Since August 2019, the Indian authorities have clamped down on the rights to freedom of expression and association in Jammu and Kashmir. On November 22, 2021, Khurram Parvez was detained by the Indian Government under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), reportedly on allegations of “terrorism funding, being a member of a terrorist organization, criminal conspiracy, and waging war against the state.” He has since been held in Rohini Prison Complex, 500 kilometers from his family.Recognizing Khurram as one of the most prominent human rights actors in Kashmir, Time magazine paid him a major tribute by including him in their list of the 100 most influential people of 2022.¨The soft-spoken Khurram is almost a modern-day David who gave a voice to families that lost their children to enforced disappearances, allegedly by the Indian State. Khurram is the story and the storyteller of the insurgency and the betrayal of the people of Kashmir¨.
Pham Doan Trang
Martin Ennals Award 2022
Pham Doan Trang is a leading journalist and an advocate for democracy in Vietnam, raising awareness on a broad human rights agenda in Vietnam. She advocates for the guarantee of civil liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, raises awareness about a wide range of topics including LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, environmental issues, the territorial conflict between Vietnam and China, police brutality, suppression of activists and political prisoners. In a country where the Communist Party’s one-party rule leaves no room for voices of criticism and opposition factions, Pham Doan Trang’s entrepreneurial work is an unparalleled achievement. She co-founded several leading media outlets such as the Luat Khoa Magazine, providing political and legal analysis, the Green Trees, Vietnam’s only pro-democracy, underground environmental rights organization and the Liberal Publishing House, printing banned books written by Vietnamese civil society leaders. She published articles in various Vietnamese print and online media.Her efforts to protect human rights in Vietnam is marked by her ability to attract international attention to Vietnam’s concerning human rights record. Her blog includes English translations of her writing in Vietnamese, and she has travelled internationally with other bloggers and activists to draw attention to human rights problems in Vietnam. She is considered among the most influential, respected, and persecuted human rights defenders in Vietnam today. She has always been a major source of inspiration and mentorship for Vietnamese civil society and the next generation of human rights defenders.From October 7, 2020 and until October 21, 2021, Trang was held in incommunicado detention. On December 14, 2021, she was sentenced to nine years in prison for “conducting propaganda against the state”. There are growing concerns about her health.
Daouda Diallo
Martin Ennals Award 2022
In Burkina Faso, Dr. Daouda Diallo is a pharmacist by training and a committed human rights defender. In 2019, he witnessed a violent clash between Burkinabe civilians, government military, local paramilitary groups and Islamist factions, where almost 200 innocent civilians across 20 villages lost their lives. Dr. Diallo strives to document human rights violations by both government factions and Islamist groups, reminding civil societies across the world of the need for human rights protection especially in the event of abysmal functioning of the rule of law and in conditions of extreme poverty.He oversees the medical laboratory of The Centre Hospitalier Régional Dédougou and is also the founder and Secretary General of the Collectif Contre l’impunité et la Stigmatisation des Communautés since 2019 (Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatisation of Communities, or the CISC). His objective has been to restore social cohesion among the varying ethnic groups of Burkina Faso. He conducts numerous investigations, writes reports and has been a reliable news source for international organizations and media channels.Dr. Diallo is highly trusted and revered by his victims, given his empathetic and kind manners; by international actors, for his analysis and information on abuses; and by NGO workers, who see him as a leader willing to give voice to their calls for justice.He has been the subject of numerous threats, ranging from stalking, robbery, and administrative hurdles to serious death threats, most notably in connection with his public statements and advocacy regarding the massacre in Yirgou in January 2019 by Islamist factions and other militias. Despite working in such vulnerable conditions, Dr. Diallo remains committed to the protection of human rights in Burkina Faso and his courage has been contagious to many other Human Rights Defenders.
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja
Martin Ennals Award 2022
Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini-Danish leader of freedom and democracy. His dedication to the protection of human rights became visible early when he was a student in London. Fiercely outspoken, Al-Khawaja embodies Bahrain’s spirit of protest and has inspired a generation of activists in Bahrain and beyond.He has protested Bahrain’s unlawful detention and torture of several civilians since he was a student. He received asylum in Denmark with his family and continued his advocacy work, documenting human rights violations in Bahrain. He advocated on behalf of victims and survivors. He became the first civil society representative to speak at the first Universal Periodic Review of Bahrain. After his return to Bahrain, he publicly criticized the Prime Minister of Bahrain and the Bahrain monarchical regime for a series of human rights abuses and for inciting discrimination between the Shia majority and Sunni minority. He advocated for economic equity and an end to corruption in Bahrain.Al-Khawaja, with other Bahraini and regional human rights defenders, co-founded several prominent human rights organisations such as the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (in 2001) and the Gulf Center for Human Rights (in 2011). These organisations were the first of their kind in the MENA region igniting a powerful culture of resistance against authoritarian regimes.He expanded his advocacy work internationally as well. He conducted critical research and investigative work with Front Line Defenders, served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies, as an advisor for The Arab Group for Monitoring Media Performance, and was involved with Amnesty International’s fact-finding mission in Iraq.In February 2011, during the Bahrain chapter of what is known as the “Arab Spring” uprisings, Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja led several peaceful demonstrations and pushed for the emerging drive for securing democratic reforms across the MENA region. Bahrain’s monarchy retaliated and shortly after the Pearl Roundabout clash, in April 2011, Al-Khawaja was violently arrested and went missing for two months. He underwent state-sanctioned torture during this period. In June 2011, after a military trial, he was condemned to life-imprisonment. April 2021 marked his tenth year in prison and his sixtieth birthday, a reminder of how human rights defenders in Bahrain continue to pay a dire price for their advocacy work.In prison, Al-Khawaja organised multiple hunger strikes to secure rights of detainees. In January 2012, he began his longest hunger strike for 110 days which took a toll on his wellbeing. Reportedly, to keep him alive, prison authorities force-fed him, an act which amounts to torture. On November 16, 2021, he began a new hunger strike to oppose the decision to restrict his access to call his family until the calls were restored. There are urgent concerns about his physical security in prison. He continues to need rehabilitation from subjected torture and presently, protection from COVID-19.
Yu Wensheng
Martin Ennals Award 2021
Yu Wensheng (54) is a Chinese human rights lawyer from Beijing. He has been detained since 2018 for his activism in favor of the rule of law, democracy and governmental reform in China.Before his human rights engagement, Yu Wensheng was a corporate lawyer. He gave up a successful career to focus on human rights cases, which ultimately led him to speak out more broadly on the rule of law in China.Over the past ten years, Yu Wensheng worked on several high-profile human rights cases, the best known of which is his defense of human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang who was arrested in 2015 during a major crackdown on human rights, called the 709 Crackdown. Despite the risk of doing so, Yu Wensheng decided to take on the case.Not only was he involved in legal human rights cases, but he also publicly advocated for constitutional changes and a revision of the legal system, namely the abolition of the death penalty and the introduction of a multi-party system.As one of the best-known and most intrepid Chinese human rights activists, Yu Wensheng has faced the severest forms of repression by the Chinese state, including arbitrary detention, conviction during a secret trial, and expulsion from the legal bar. According to his wife, he is currently being held in solitary confinement, has been denied access to medical care and subjected to ill-treatments which resulted in his hand being crushed. In December 2020, a Chinese regional High Court upheld the four-year prison sentence against him. Ever since, his whereabouts are unknown.
Martin Ennals Award Laureates (2020 ~ 2011)
Huda Al-Sarari
Martin Ennals Award 2020
Huda Al-Sarari is a Yemeni lawyer and human rights activist.She graduated in Sharia and Law from Aden University in 2011 and holds a masters in Women’s Studies and Development from the Women’s Centre at Aden University.She has been working for more than a decade with numerous local Yemeni human rights organisations such as the Yemeni Women’s Union, the Adala Foundation for Rights and Freedoms and the National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations.Over the last years, she investigated, exposed and challenged the network of secret prisons run by foreign governments in Yemen since 2015, and where thousands of men and boys have suffered arbitrary detention and torture.She collected evidence on more than 250 cases of the abuse taking place within the prisons and succeeded in convincing international organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to take up the cause.Despite the threats, defamation campaigns and sacrifices she and her family endured, she continues to stand alongside the families of those who have disappeared and pursues justice.In October 2019, she was honoured as co-finalist by the Aurora Prize.
Abdul Aziz Muhamat
Martin Ennals Award 2019
Abdul Aziz Muhamat (Aziz) is a compelling and tireless advocate for refugee rights. He has been trapped in the Australian offshore immigration system on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, since October 2013, along with hundreds of other refugees and asylum seekers.He belongs to the Zaghawa ethnic group of Darfur, in north-western Sudan. In 2013, the conflict forced him to seek asylum. He flew to Indonesia and travelled onward by boat for Australia. His boat was intercepted by Australian authorities, who forcibly transferred him into the country’s offshore immigration system at the Lombrum naval base, on Manus Island. He was granted refugee status in early 2015, but remains on Manus Island, along with several hundred other men who were transferred there after arriving in Australian territory by boat and seeking asylum.
Aziz is one of the primary public voices among the men held on Manus Island and regularly speaks out on international news media. For two years, he sent over 4000 thousand voice messages to report on his experiences for the multi award-winning podcast, The Messenger.Working with several Australian and international human rights and refugee advocacy organisations, Aziz has worked continuously on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island in order to allow them to leave the island and be resettled in safety and security. He has also working tirelessly advocating for humane living conditions and adequate medical care.He has been deeply involved in various kinds of peaceful resistance, including letter writing to politicians, a mass hunger strike (for which he and dozens of others were arrested and held in PNG police and prison cells for up to four weeks without charge in January 2015), and various periods of non-cooperation and peaceful and silent protest.
The centre fell into its worst crisis on 31 October 2017, when Australian authorities and contractors left Manus Island, having sought to close the site in the naval base and force the refugees and asylum seekers to move to three other facilities close to the main town on Manus Island. The men refused to leave. From the beginning of August, they held daily peaceful protests – demanding instead to be granted freedom in a third country. The men remained in the centre without provision of food, water, electricity or medical care for 24 days, until they were moved by force by PNG authorities.Aziz was one of the leaders of the protest movement, During a 24-day standoff, Aziz also played the role of the welfare coordinator, overseeing the equitable distribution of smuggled food and medicine; facilitating doctors’ consultations by phone for those who were ill; and liaising with donors and advocates in Australia who sent money to pay for necessities.Abdul Aziz Muhamat was granted refugee status in early 2015. However, he is still in Manus, as are many other men, because he has not found a host country. New Zealand offered to accept 150 of them, but Australia opposed this. Abdul Aziz Muhamat is determined to secure the departure to a third country of all refugees and asylum seekers who fell victim to Australia’s offshore immigration policy.
Mohamed Zaree
Martin Ennals Award 2017
Mohamed Zaree is a devoted activist and legal expert specializing in human rights advocacy with an emphasis on freedom of expression and association. He is also known for his role as the Egypt Country Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS).After completing his undergraduate studies at Cairo University in 2002, Zaree earned a graduate diploma in Civil Society and Human Rights in 2004. He then worked with a number of international and Egyptian non-governmental organizations, including United Group, Nazra for Feminist Studies and Catholic Relief Services. In 2011, he joined CIHRS as its Egypt Program Director.Following the crackdown on Egyptian human rights organizations, Zaree took over the role of CIHRS Egypt Office Director. Government pressure on CIHRS compelled the institute to relocate its headquarters to Tunis in 2014. Due to his tireless advocacy for human rights, Zaree is currently under investigation with a high risk of prosecution and life imprisonment.
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Ilham Tohti
Martin Ennals Award 2016
Ilham Tohti is a renowned Uyghur public intellectual in the People’s Republic of China. For over two decades he has worked tirelessly to foster dialogue and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese, despite an environment of religious, cultural, and political repression suffered by Uyghurs. They are a Muslim Turkic people living mainly in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. As a result of his efforts he was sentenced in September 2014 to life in prison following a two-day show trial. He remains a voice of moderation and reconciliation in spite of how he has been treated.Ilham was born in 1969 in Artush, Xinjiang, and began his studies in 1985 at what is now the Central Minzu University in Beijing, known for its minority studies. Following years of advanced study and research, he became a faculty member at Central Minzu University. He is a recognized expert on economic and social issues pertaining to Xinjiang and Central Asia.
Ahmed Mansoor
Martin Ennals Award 2015
Ahmed Mansoor is one of the few voices within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who provides a credible independent assessment of human rights developments in the country. He regularly raises concerns on arbitrary detention, torture or ill or degrading treatment, failure to meet international standards for fair trials, non-independence of the judiciary, domestic laws that violate internationallaw, and other violations of civil rights. He has been jailed for his efforts, and is currently unable to travel.He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Master of Science in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States. In 2012, during his third year of law school, he was physically attacked and had to suspend his studies.
Alejandra Ancheita
Martin Ennals Award 2014
Alejandra Ancheita, the founder and Executive Director of the Mexico City-based ProDESC (The Project of Economic, Cultural, and Social Rights), is a Mexican lawyer and activist who leads the fight for the rights of the migrants, workers, and indigenous communities of her native country to dramatically raise their standard of living. Since founding ProDESC in 2005, Alejandra and her dedicated team have run strategic campaigns aimed at protecting the economic, social, and cultural rights of Mexico’s most marginalised people. The tangible results of these campaigns include unprecedented accountability mechanisms between some of the world’s largest transnational companies, thereby ensuring the rights to dignified housing, health, education, and a fair wage, among others.The values of social justice and courage run deep in Alejandra’s family. Her father was a lawyer dedicated to defending vulnerable people in the face of powerful interests. Following several death threats warning him to desist from his work, he died under suspicious circumstances on the day of Alejandra’s 8th birthday.
Joint Mobile Group
Martin Ennals Award 2013
The Joint Mobile Group seeks accountability for human rights abuses in Chechnya, notably enforced disappearances, torture in custody, and extra-judicial executions. Following the murders in 2009 of Natalia Estemirova, Zarema Saydulayeva, and Alik Dzhabrailov who were investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya, it became even more dangerous to work there. The existing organizations were forced to stop their work. In response, Igor Kalyapin, who heads the Committee Against Torture (CAT), structured a new approach.The Joint Mobile Group (JMG) coordinated by CAT works with human rights lawyers who volunteer to investigate abuses in Chechnya itself. They go for short periods and then leave again. This has allowed them to investigate abduction, torture, disappearances and murder. They support the victims and their families by being available 24 hours per day, in case of reprisals. In this way, JMG has become one of the main sources of information on human rights abuses in the Chechen Republic, and uses this information to put pressure on the authorities.
Luon Sovath
Martin Ennals Award 2012
The Venerable Luon Sovath, Cambodia. In March 2009, Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk from Siem Reap, Cambodia witnessed his family and fellow villagers being forcibly evicted from their homes. Forced evictions remove families from their homes, often with no compensation. Despite threats of violence, arrest and disrobing, the venerable Sovath, a non-violent Buddhist monk, uses videos, poems and songs to defend the right to housing, but his advocacy touches powerful economic interests. The threats against the venerable Sovath are very real.
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera
Martin Ennals Award 2011
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, is an Ugandan LGBT activist and founder/Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, one of the main lesbian, bisexual and transgender women rights organization in the country. She has been continuously fighting for the rights of the marginalized communities.She became engaged in the very “controversial” issue of gay rights in Uganda when she was just 21, and has since played a leading role in the Ugandan LGBT rights movement. After being expelled from several schools, Kasha decided to study the law in Uganda.
Martin Ennals Award Laureates (2010 ~ 2001)
Muhannad Al-Hassani
Martin Ennals Award 2010
If one feature stands out in Al-Hassani’s character it is probably his resilience. The organisation he founded in 2004, Swasiya (the Syria Organisation for Human Rights), of which he is President, has been denied official registration by the Syrian authorities for the past six years. Despite knowing that he was under surveillance over the years, and risked being arrested at any moment, Al-Hassani continued to report on the State Supreme Security Court’s proceedings as these reports were vital for the UN and international NGOs monitoring human rights in Syria.On 23 June 2010 Muhannad Al-Hassani was sentenced by Syria’s Second Damascus Criminal Court to three years in prison for “weakening the national sentiment” and “spreading false news” – a charge routinely used against government opponents and Syrian pro-democracy advocates.
Emadeddin Baghi
Martin Ennals Award 2009
Emadeddin Baghi is a human rights defender, a theologian, a writer and journalist, based in Tehran, Iran. Since the 1980s, Baghi has advocated for the peaceful improvement to the human rights situation in Iran. He is the founder and President of the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, member of the Central Council of the Society for Defending Press Freedom, and board member of the Pacifist Association.As an expert in the field of Islamic jurisprudence, Baghi has made a reputation for himself as a staunch opponent of the death penalty in Iran. His campaign for the abolition of the death penalty has taken on various forms, including a scholarly examination of Islamic law, in which he demonstrates the absence of any doctrinal requirement for maintaining capital punishment.Since the Islamic Revolution began in 1979, Baghi has been collecting information about all forms of executions committed in Iran – Baghi estimates more 10 000 victims, including juvenile offenders. His work has proved a valuable resource for the international community investigating human rights violations in Iran. Along with his investigative documentation of human rights violations, Baghi has published numerous articles and books about a variety of topics, including: democratic interpretations of Islam, the killing of dissident intellectuals in the late 1990s, the death penalty and executions.
Moʻtabar Tojiboyeva
Martin Ennals Award 2008
On 7 October 2005, Mutabar Tadjibaeva was arrested on her way to Tashkent airport, to catch a connecting flight to Dublin, Ireland, where she was due to attend an international conference on human rights defenders. She was taken to Tashkent prison and would spend the next several months in solitary confinement. On 6 March 2006, Tadjibaeva was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment on 17 different charges including “slander” and “membership of an illegal organisation”.In fact, Mutabar Tadjibaeva is an Uzbek human rights defender who was known for denouncing the government’s crackdown on dissent and especially her work of monitoring human rights violations in the Ferghana Valley, information which she shared with the international human rights community. She was arrested in October 2005 after criticising the Uzbek government’s handling of the Andijan massacre in May 2005.She is the Chairwomen of the Uzbek human rights NGO “Plammenoe Serdtse” (Fiery Hearts Club), with its headquarters in Ferghana City. She is also a member of the Uzbek civil rights movement “Human Rights Alliance for Uzbekistan” and was a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
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Rajan Hoole
Martin Ennals Award 2007
Rajan Hoole is a Sri Lankan human rights defender from the northern Tamil town of Jaffna. As co-founder of the University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR), he is known for his unbiased documentation of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.Before the civil war which broke out in 1983, Rajan Hoole, an Oxford-educated mathematician, was a professor and classical pianist living in Jaffna.By the late 80s, the number of massacres and human-rights atrocities were on the rise, and Hoole decided to join the 300-strong University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) in Jaffna.The UTHR, founded in 1988, began publishing reports on human rights violations from the University of Jaffna. Part of their function was “to challenge the external and internal terror engulfing the Tamil community as a whole through making the perpetrators accountable, and to create space for humanizing the social and political sphere relating to life of our community”.Hoole and fellow UTHR co-founder, Kopalasingham Sritharan, began writing reports documenting human rights violations carried out by Sri Lankan government forces, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPFK), as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Kopalasingham Sritharan
Martin Ennals Award 2007
Kopalasingham Sritharan is a Tamil Human Rights defender and co-founder of the University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) at Jaffna University in 1988.Sritharan, along with UTHR co-founder Rajan Hoole, founded the UTHR in order to document human rights violations committed since the Sri Lankan civil war began in 1983 – a conflict often falsely perceived as a struggle between the minority Tamils of the north and majority Sinhalese of the south.Both Sritharan and Hoole have spent more than two decades documenting human rights violations committed in Sri Lanka, albeit from abroad since 1990, after coming under attack by both the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and Sri Lankan government, soon after publishing their first reports.One of Sritharan’s first reports, written alongside with Hoole and another colleague, Daya Somasundaram, The Broken Palmyra, is a seminal narrative documenting human rights violations committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Sri Lankan government forces and the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF).
Pierre Claver Mbonimpa
Martin Ennals Award 2007
Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is a Burundian human rights defender known for his defense of prisoners’ rights and relentless condemnation of torture.In December 1994, while working as police officer in Burundi, Mbonimpa was arrested and sentenced to two years imprisonment on false accusations.Two years of torture and ill-treatment left its mark on Mbonimpa, so much so that following his release, he created the Burundian Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH).The APRODH works on monitoring and denouncing human rights violations, mainly torture, sexual violence, and gender-based violence.The APRODH has for years campaigned on-behalf of prisoners awaiting trial in Burundi’s overcrowded jails. According Mbonimpa, there is a 300% rate of overpopulation in Burundian jails, a figure which he describes as “deplorable”.
Akbar Ganji
Martin Ennals Award 2007
Only a year after publishing a collection of his newspaper articles entitled Dungeon of Ghosts (1999) Akbar Ganji, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps turned investigative journalist, had become Iran’s public enemy number one. His book exposed Iran’s leading political figures at the heart of a conspiracy which had liquidated many of Iran’s intellectuals, writers and dissidents.He would soon be arrested and after five years in prison, including a near death experience brought on by a 60-day hunger strike, Ganji is now not only free but one of Iran’s most prominent political dissidents.Ganji received the Martin Ennals Award in 2006 and has since earned the accolades of more than a dozen international journalism, human rights and pro-democracy awards.
Arnold Tsunga
Martin Ennals Award 2006
A Zimbabwean human rights defender and lawyer described as ‘fearless’ and ‘tenacious’, Arnold Tsunga is the founder and former Director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). Under Mugabe and during the 2000s, Tsunga was the target of numerous campaigns of aggression and assault for his human rights work. He is currently the Director of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Africa Regional Programme.At the end of the 1990s, Tsunga gave up practicing as a private lawyer and began to develop human rights programs in Zimbabwe. Fighting against what he describes as “complete corruption of the system of governance”, Tsunga sought the realisation of democracy and human rights through a “political transformation”.Tsunga played a pivotal role in the establishment of civil society groups for the protection and promotion of human rights in Zimbabwe. He is the former acting Executive Secretary of the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) and former National Chairperson of Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights).
Aktham Naisse
Martin Ennals Award 2005
After more than a decade struggling for human rights in Syria, on December 1989, Aktham Naisse co-founded the Committee for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights (CDF). The first of its kind in Syria, CDF quickly began defending political prisoners, denouncing Syria’s longstanding 1963 Emergency Law and calling for political reforms.The same year, Naisse took matters a step further and began publicizing a newsletter under the name Sawt ad-Dimuqratiya (Voice of Democracy). Naisse would earn the ire of the Syrian authorities – running an illegal NGO and publishing a newsletter critical of the regime.Working between the lines was by no means ‘new territory’ for Naisse – for nearly 15 years he had been seeking permission from the government to work openly and freely on human rights issues in Syria.On 18 December 1991, only a few days after the CDF’s 2nd anniversary, Naisse was arrested. The torture sessions ensued and following a categorically ‘unfair’ trial, he was sentenced to nine years imprisonment. He was provisionally released in 1996, however he continued to agitate the Syrian authorities over democratic and human rights, maintained his fervent criticism of the State of Emergency, landing him in jail a further five times between 1996 and 1998.Immediately after his final release in 1998, he would further bolster the CDF’s efforts by launching a campaign to lift the State of Emergency and allow all exiled Syrian to return.Almost a year later in 2000, then-president Hafez Al-Assad died, his son Bashar, taking over the reins while making promises of ‘political reforms’. With the release of 600 political prisoners in November 2000 and a renewed tolerance for civil society groups, Syria seemed to be approaching a new era under its new youthful President. But as more than 60 discussion forums would emerge, hope was short-lived, as the previous darkness Syrians knew all too well came to settle once again.By 2001 the vast majority of the new-founded discussion fora and civil society groups had once again disappeared and in June 2002, the European parliament adopted a resolution condemning the imprisonment of Syrian intellectuals and political opponents.On 27 August 2003, the CDF was told to shut down, despite the threats, Naisse’s didn’t back down, rather leading the CDF in doubling its efforts.In early 2004 the CDF published a petition signed by 7000 intellectuals calling for an end to the Emergency Law. The same year, on 8 March the anniversary of the 41st of Baath party rule, Naisse organized a peaceful sit-in outside the Damascus parliament, during which protestors made calls for democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners.An alleged 700 demonstrators were arrested, but released the following day. A month later, Naisse was summoned by the military security services in Latakia, west Syria and arrested.He was charged with “opposing the objectives of the revolution” and “disseminating false information aiming at weakening the State” – charges that could land him 15-years in jail.By now Naisse was used to the Syrian authorities’ draconian tactics, having been the target of threats and harassment over the last 10 years, escalating to an incident when his mother was beaten by security services in 2003.The international human rights community instantly mobilized as the FIDH, OMCT, Frontline and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Right Network amongst others issued appeals on Naisse’s behalf.While in custody, Naisse was awarded the Ludovic Trarieux international human rights prize for 2004While in custody, awaiting trial, Naisse suddenly suffered a stroke after being denied medication for his kidney and heart problems. Fearing he might die, Syria’s Supreme State Security Court (SSSC) conditionally released Naisse on 17 August 2004 for 10,000 Syrian Pounds, and called on the authorities to drop all charges.After successive postponements in his trial – culminating on 24 April 2005 during a hearing with a protest of more than 200 demonstrators outside the SSSC in Damascus – Aktham Naisse was acquitted by SSSC on 26 June 2005.News of his release was welcomed across the globe and a few days before his trial Naisse wrote to the Martin Ennals Foundation saying,
Lidia Yusupova
Martin Ennals Award 2004
Lidia Yusupova is the Coordinator of the Moscow-based human rights organization ‘Memorial’ and the former director of its Grozny office. She is an internationally recognized human rights defender known for her defense of Chechnya’s victims of war and internally displaced refugees.On 7 April 2004, at a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, Lidia received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for her “tireless efforts in a situation of war and extreme danger.” The ceremony was broadcast live on Swiss television as special edition of Zigzag Café.Lidia Yusupova was born in Grozny on 15 September 1961 to a Russian mother and a Chechen father and studied literature at the Karachevo-Cherkeski Institute. She soon earned a law degree from the Chechen University of Grozny where she later became a lecturer.
Alirio Uribe Muñoz
Martin Ennals Award 2003
Under constant harassment and intimidation, Colombian human rights defender, Alirio Uribe Muñoz, literally lives in “shadow of death” – so much so that when he gives public lectures he is accompanied by guards from Peace Brigade International (PBI).A member and sometimes Head of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR), Uribe Muñoz has been fighting against corruption and impunity in Colombia since the early 1990s. His work has focused on investigating the involvement of government funded paramilitary groups in political killings, disappearances and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Colombians.During the late 1990s, Colombian paramilitary groups intensified the number of assassinations against trade unionists, human rights defenders, farmers and opposition political figures. The Economist magazine reported in November 1999 that “the guerrilla war accounts for less than 20 percent of the violent deaths in Colombia,” and according to a 1998 report by the North American Congress in Latin America, nearly three to four thousand political assassinations happened in Colombia each year.
Jacqueline Moudeina
Martin Ennals Award 2002
Moudeina was severely wounded and barely kept alive in the local hospital. She would spend the next 15 months in and out of rehabilitation in France. It is remarkable that on 11 April 2002, while still in recovery, Moudeina was able to accept in person the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders at a ceremony in Geneva, in the context of the North-South Media festival. The date of the ceremony coincided with the entry into force of the International Criminal Court and in the many television interviews that followed the ceremony, Jacqueline Moudeina referred to the situation of impunity that reigned in Chad. Upon return to Chad, accompanied by two international human rights NGOs, Jacqueline was joyfully received by her supporters and given increased respect by the authorities.
Peace Brigades International
Martin Ennals Award 2001
Peace Brigades International (PBI) is an international NGO committed to non-violent social change through the promotion and protection of human rights. PBI has a dedicated network of international volunteers who accompany human rights defenders in conflict zones and provide training on conflict resolution.Since 1983, PBI has helped support human rights defenders through advocacy and pioneered the way for ‘protective accompaniment’ – a method of placing PBI’s volunteers alongside human rights defenders to accompany them in their daily work.PBI currently has field projects in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Nepal, in which over 50 PBI volunteers are observing and protecting human rights defenders. PBI has 13 regional offices in North America, Europe and Australasia. Since its first project during the 1983 Contra war in Nicaragua, PBI has had projects in the Balkans (1994-2001), El Salvador (1987-2000), Sri Lanka (1989-1999), Haiti (1995-2000) and North America (1992-1998).According to its mandate, PBI focuses on “encouraging civil society to bear witness as human rights observers.” This involves training volunteers for conflict situations, raising independent funds to support its projects and using the media and civil society to raise the profile of human rights defenders. These continuous efforts have enabled PBI to build a vast support network of volunteers, members, MPs and representatives from the legal sector.Since 1994, PBI’s Colombia Project had accompanied more than 20 local human rights organisations and displaced communities across Colombia. For years now, Colombian human rights defenders have been subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation, harassment and assassination. One Colombian human rights defenderlauded PBI’s efforts, saying that “The death sentences against each and every one of us have not been carried out because we are not alone, we have the accompaniment of Peace Brigades International.” Alirio Uribe Muñoz, a Colombian lawyer and human rights defender, who received the Martin Ennals Award in 2003, has for years benefited from PBI’s protective accompaniment as part of its project in Colombia.Coinciding with the international year of volunteers in 2001, PBI received the Martin Ennals Award the same year at a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland. Hans Thoolen, Chairman
Martin Ennals Award Laureates (2000 ~ 1991)
Immaculée Birhaheka
Martin Ennals Award 2000
Co-founder and president of the organization Promotion et appui aux initiatives féminines (PAIF), created in 1993, Immaculée Birhaheka is nowadays one of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) leading women’s rights advocates.The PAIF began as an effort to empower women by advocating for political rights of women within the DRC’s public sphere. The focus was on educating local women about their legal rights, while Immaculée began the long arduous road of sensitizing the DRC authorities to international law and basic human rights.After a wave of invasions into Congo following the 1994 Rwanda genocide – which erupted in violent conflict and left thousands of displaced civilians – Immaculée began focusing her work on the rehabilitation of rape victims and publicly denounced rape as ‘a weapon of war’.Immaculée’s outspokenness has garnered negative attention inside the DRC on the one hand, and praise from the international community on the other. Because of her open protest against on-going human rights violations against women in the DRC, Immaculée continued to receive death threats from both the DRC government authorities and Congolese militia groups.
Nataša Kandić
Martin Ennals Award 1999
Natasha Kandic’s unrelenting dedication to unraveling the truth behind wartime atrocities is perhaps only overshadowed by her acclaimed investigation of the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide, during which more than 8 000 Bosniak men ad boys were massacred by the Bosnian Serb Army. In September 2005 she received the honorary citizenship of the City of Sarajevo, an exceptional gesture by a Bosnian city to a Serb national.At some point in 2005, she obtained a video tape of Serb paramilitaries executing six Bosnian Muslim prisoners near Srebrenica in 1995. The tape was used as evidence by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia to indict Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague – it was the straw that broke the camel’s back; the images that helped to form the unequivocal truth of Serbia’s role in what is now remembered as Europe’s ‘worst massacre since world war II’.
Eyad El Sarraj
Martin Ennals Award 1998
On 17 December 2013, Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, Palestinian psychiatrist and Commissioner-General of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights, passed away in Gaza.In November 1998 Dr Eyad Rajab El Sarraj was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders and during his acceptance speech he said, “Receiving this award reminded me of one of the persons I left behind in prison. He said to me: ‘Don’t forget me… please… don’t forget me.'”Dr Eyad Rajab El Sarraj was an internationally renowned Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights defender. Best known for his psychiatric work in the Gaza strip, he founded the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. El Sarraj’s career has spanned more than 40 years and he is internationally admired for his relentless advocacy for the rights of his native-Palestinian community.
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Samuel Ruiz Garcia
Martin Ennals Award 1997
Pablo Romo, a Dominican priest and colleague of Bishop Ruiz, said that “He made the word of God accessible to the people.”Known as the “Tatic”, meaning “father” in the Mayan language, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia was the reverend of Mexican indigenous communities and its most dedicated defender of rights and freedoms.Born on 3 November 1924 in Irapuato, Guanajuato State in central Mexico, Bishop Ruiz Garcia died on 24 January 2011, in Mexico City due to complications with high blood pressure and diabetes.At his funeral, Mexican President Felipe Calderón, said that Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia helped build a more “egalitarian and dignified” Mexico.Bishop Samuel Ruiz García spent more than 40 years of his life as a Roman Catholic Bishop in the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, in the State of Chiapas.During his time as Chiapas’ spiritual leader, he dedicated himself to defending the rights of his area’s indigenous populations and acted as the permanent mediator between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.In his selfless efforts to create a society without discrimination, Bishop Ruiz came to prominence in the 1960s for speaking out against Chiapas’ unwritten laws.When Bishop Ruiz arrived in Chiapas in 1960, he was faced with a reality of seemingly insurmountable social injustices. Indigenous workers of Chiapas bore the whip marks on their backs, as plantation owners exploited and beat them for a meager three cents a day.It was the Bishop’s faith that led him to fight the exploitation and injustice,however it is claimed that it was his socialist ideology that enabled him to help the indigenous community realise their rights.In 1990, during Pope John Paul II visit to Mexico, local landowners wrote an open letter labeling the Bishop as communist and fomenting class hatred.Subsequently, he was smeared by the Vatican for having “strayed from his ecclesiastical principles” and was asked to step down from his position in 1993. Support from Mexican clerics avoided his resignation, as he remained bishop until he retired in 2000.He was later accused by the Mexican government, in 1994, of embroiling the violent uprising in Chiapas. However, peace talks would prevail, and an accord was signed by the government and the Zapatistas in 1995.The Bishop’s personal character is marked by his vast humility, resilience and unique social awareness. During his 40 years of religious service, he learned four Mayan dialects and would frequently travel through his diocese by mule.Bishop Ruiz Garcia was recompensed for a lifetime’s dedication to defending human rights when he received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in Mexico City in November 1997.Photos
Clement Nwankwo
Martin Ennals Award 1996
Clement Nwankwo, is pioneering Nigerian human rights defender and the founder of Nigeria’s first human rights organization, Constitutional Rights Project (CRP). He has worked for more than two decades promoting human rights and the rule of law in Nigeria.In the 1990s, during the military rule of Sani Abache, the CRP played a central role in speaking out against human rights abuses carried out by the regime.Under pressure from human rights activists and civil society groups, Abacha reacted by banning political activity and gagging the media. Nwankwo responded by forging a campaigning for the Nigerian leaders to conform to international human rights law.By 1995, Nigeria in corruption had reached a peak and human rights abuses were commonplace. Several high profiles Nigerian human rights leaders were arrested and arbitrarily detained, as trade union leaders and pro-democracy activists were held incommunicado and tortured.In its 1996 report, Amnesty International published figures stating that “at least 95 executions and 46 death sentences were report in 1995.”The same year Nwankwo received the 1996 Martin Ennals Award forHuman Rights Defenders in recognition of his “courage, strength and creativity.”During his acceptance speech at the ceremony in London, he said:“We shall continue to strive and push to achieve an accountable and responsible government that derives its legitimacy from the Nigerian people.”On trip to Switzerland in April 1997, Nwankwo was arrested in by Geneva police on charges of alleged theft. He was assaulted by police in the street and later strip searched at the police station, only to be left naked for an hour and prevented from getting dressed.Nwankwo eventually lodged a complaint against the Geneva police over, however the Geneva Prosecutor General dismissed the case, only to later admit that Nwankwo had been “prevented – for almost an hour – from getting dressed” and that this constituted a criminal offense of abuse of authority.The three officers involved in the incident would later have their disciplinary sanctions annulled following a successful appeal, leaving Nwankwo to read about it in the newspapers, rather than being informed by the Geneva authorities.The case was eventually taken up by Amnesty International and later the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers who
Asma Jahangir
Martin Ennals Award 1995
Winner of the 1995 Martin Ennals Award, she has since then received continued recognition for her activism and human rights work.At the time, she had achieved world recognition for her successful defense of a fourteen year old Christian boy, Salamat Masih, accused of blasphemy, only to be physical assaulted and harassed by death threats.Her activism began as a consequence of the detention of her father in 1971 following the repression of the Awami League and his role as one of its leading lights. It would take her ten years from the filing of her first petition to win a landmark case resulting in the release of her father.
Harry Wu
Martin Ennals Award 1994
Harry Wu, is a former Chinese political prisoner who spent 19 years in the infamous laogai slave-labor camp. A US-citizen since 1995, he has dedicated his post-laogai life to human rights and unveiling the truth behind the bamboo curtain.Harry Wu’s struggle began in 1957 when, as a 20-year-old geology student, he attended a youth-group meeting during which he openly criticized Communist party politics by publicly stating that the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary was a violation of international law.These youth-group meetings were part of the ‘100 Flower Movement’, which between 1956 and 1957, that encouraged Chinese youth to ‘blossom’. But rather than blossom, Wu’s views and actions resulted in 24-hour surveillance and labeling as a “counter-revolutionary rightist”. His family and friends soon denounced him, and he became increasingly marginalized.Harry Wu at a re-education camp near Beijing in 1965Harry WuDuring his forced labour, Wu worked in China’s fields, mines and factories. He was starved for most of two decades and at one point he weighed as little as 36kg.Following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and the fall of the ‘Gang of Four’, the Chinese Communist Party decided to release ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and, following several appeals, Wu was released in 1979.He soon began working as a lecturer at the China Geoscience University. Wu never spoke about politics again.“You can take the very best men in the world … and if you put them in the laogia, after a time, they will all become beasts”In the mid-80s, after six years as a professor, he was invited as a visiting scholar to the Civil Engineering Department of the University of California in Berkeley.Wu arrived in San Francisco in November 1985. ”At the airport…’ says Wu ‘I got on my knees and kissed the ground!’ Harry Wu was finally free.Moving from job to job to makes ends meet, Wu was eventually asked by the US Senate to testify on the laogai. This event marked the beginning of Harry Wu’s mission as a human rights activist.In 1991, as part of a CBS documentary to investigate the laogai, Wu and his wife returned to China. Using a hidden camera, he documented the deplorable conditions within the labor camps. The footage would later become part of Ed Bradley’s 60 Minutes feature ‘Made in China’.HARRY_WU_FILMING_460wideIn March 1994, Harry Wu became the inaugural laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.By 1995, Wu was an American citizen, and in that same year he was the center of a US-China diplomatic dispute, after being Harry Wu secretly filming a re-education camp in 1991 as part of CBS documentary to investigate the laogai arrested while trying to cross the Kazakh-Chinese border. The Chinese authorities refused to repatriate him and charged him with ‘possessing state secrets and posing as a government functionary’. He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, but only spent 38 days in custody before being put on a flight back to San Francisco.Today, Harry Wu runs the Laogai Research Foundation he founded in 1992 and is currently building a museum dedicated to the cause.He is the author of several books including Bitter Winds (1995) and Troublemaker (2002) and frequently appears on radio and television to discuss human rights in China.