Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

 The Joint Mobile Group was selected by the International Human Rights Community (See Jury Below) as the Laureate 2013 of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Joint Mobile Group, Russia: After the murder of several human rights activists working in Chechnya, Igor Kalyapin started the Joint Mobile Group. To reduce the risk they send investigators on short missions to Chechnya to document Human Rights abuses. This information is then used to publicise these abuses to seek legal redress.  Igor Kalyapin speaking of the effect of international publicity said   “… when the international community is watching us it is more difficult for the authorities to take steps against us…”

Igor Kalyapin founder JMG

Micheline Calmy-Rey, Chair, Martin Ennals Foundation said  “The choice of the Jury has again shown that human rights defenders are the most crucial actors and can make a difference on the ground””

The other Final Nominees are:

Mona Seif, Egypt: Core founder of the” No To Military Trials for Civilians”, Mona has brought together activists, lawyers, victims’ families, local stakeholders and started a nationwide movement against military trials.

Mario Joseph, referred to as Haiti’s most important Human Rights lawyer, he has worked on some of the most important cases in Haiti, including the current case against the former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

The main award of the human rights movement. The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) is a unique collaboration among ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations to give protection to human rights defenders worldwide.  The Jury is composed of the following 10 NGOs

–       Amnesty International,

–       Human Rights Watch,

–       Human Rights First,

–       Int’l Federation for Human Rights,

–       World Organisation Against Torture,

–       Front Line Defenders

–       International Commission of Jurists,

–       German Diakonie,

–       International Service for Human Rights

–       HURIDOCS.