Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

On 13 March 2010, Eric Sottas, the long-standing repesentative of the World Organisation Against Torture, one of the 10 NGOs on the Jury of the Martin Ennals Award, announced the names of the four nominees of the Martin Ennals Award 2010. He did this during the closing of the International Film Festival on Human Rights in Geneva:

 Mr. Wan Yanhai (China)

Ms Aida Quilcué (Colombia)

Mr. Daniel Bekele (Ethiopia)

Mr. Muhannad Al Hassani (Syria)

Eric gave a marvellous little speech in which he dug into the thorny question of how to define a Human Rights Defender (HRD) and the increasing difficulties HRDs face in their work. I am trying to get hold of his speaking notes…

Hans Thoolen

This entry was posted on March 16, 2010 at 09:03 and is filed under Uncategorized.