Archive for the 'awards' Category

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Reminder: the 2019 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders ceremony Wednesday 13 February

February 6, 2019

 

A reminder about the ceremony for the 2019 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders which will be held on Wednesday 13 February, 2019 – 18h00 – Salle communale de Plainpalais (Rue de Carouge 52), Geneva, also known as Pitoëff. Please note that this location is different from previous years!

 

The laureate will be selected from among the three 2019 finalists:

Eren Keskin <https://171895.g4.mp-stats.com/url-955662790-4564377-05122018.html> (Turkey) is a lawyer who has been fighting for the rights of women, Kurds and the LGBTI community for over thirty years. She has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in March 2018, but is free while her case is under appeal. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/01/29/eren-keskin-mea-nominee-2019-speaks-out-fearlessly-turkey-more-oppressive-today-than-ever/]

Abdul Aziz Muhamat<https://171895.g4.mp-stats.com/url-955662790-4564378-05122018.html> (Sudan) has been detained by Australia for 5 years in a detention centre for asylum seekers on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. He is a strong advocate for the rights of asylum seekers. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/12/04/mea-nominee-aziz-abdul-muhamat-suffers-under-australias-endless-detention-policy/]

Marino Cordoba <https://171895.g4.mp-stats.com/url-955662790-4564379-05122018.html> (Colombia) is an activist fighting for the political recognition and rights of the Afro-Colombian community, many of whom have been dispossessed of their land for the benefit of mining and forestry companies.

The laureate is selected by the Jury of the Martin Ennals Award, made up of ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, FIDH, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Front Line Defenders, the International Commission of Jurists, Brot für die Welt, the International Service for Human Rights and HURIDOCS. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/24/breaking-news-ennals-award-announces-its-3-finalists-for-2019/]

Short documentaries on the life of these finalists will be screened for the first time, giving a glimpse of their fight and the particularly difficult conditions in which they work. The evening will conclude with a receptionhosted by the City of Geneva, allowing the 2019 finalists, the Geneva community of human rights and the public to exchange in an informal setting.

Last year’s film portrait of the laureate can be seen here <https://171895.g4.mp-stats.com/url-955662790-4564385-05122018.html>.

The City of Geneva has been supporting this award since 2005.

To attend in person please register now on the Martin Ennals Award’s website https://171895.g4.mp-stats.com/url-955662790-4564381-05122018.html, otherwise follow the live stream.

 

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Liberian environmental human rights defender Silas Siakor wins another award

February 6, 2019
Silas Siakor smiles as his received the Black World Prize to the Fraternity from the Spanish magazine Mundo Negro and Comboni Missionaries on February 2, 2019 in Madrid Spain 

James Harding Giahyue reports that Liberian Silas Siakor, founder of the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) and winner of the Goldman Environment Award, has added another recognition for his work in Liberia’s natural resource sector.

Siakor on Saturday received the Black World Prize from the Mundo Negro magazine and the Comboni Missionaries at an elaborate ceremony in the Madrid, Spain.  The groups said they gave Siakor the award (€10,000) for defending rural communities and nature against concession companies and politicians.

“Silas Siakor stars in a fight against illegal logging and political corruption in his country, Liberia,” said the Mundo Negro in a statement on its website.  “His work highlights the desire and power of people who want to change the world, even if they sometimes face the interests of groups that accumulate money and power” .

Siakor in 2006 landed the Goldman Environmental Award, the world’s most prestigious environmental prize, for exposing the Charles Taylor-led government’s use of illegal logging to fund Liberia’s brutal civil war that left 250,000 dead and more than a million displaced.   He also won the Whitley Award for Environment and Human Rights; as well as the Alexander Soros Award for Extraordinary Achievements in Environmental and Human Rights Activism.

Siakor also stars in the 2017 80-minute film, “Silas” about his work, which has been screened at a number of film festivals across the world. The film Silas by Hawa Essuman and Anjali Nayar, chronicles the life of its eponymous main character in his fight over the years against convicted war-criminal Charles Taylor and the illegal deforestation and corruption in his native Liberia.

https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/liberian-environmentalist-wins-top-international-award/

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Nicaraguan journalist Wilfredo Miranda in exile wins journalism award

February 4, 2019

Nicaraguan journalist Wilfredo Miranda interviewing a witness to police repression in Masaya, Nicaragua, last summer. CREDIT COURTESY

Nicaragua’s human rights crisis  see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/01/18/exceptional-response-by-international-ngos-to-human-rights-crisis-in-nicaragua/] has sent many journalists into exile. Among them is Wilfredo Ernesto Miranda, a young reporter for the respected Nicaraguan weekly newspaper Confidencial. Miranda came to Miami after being threatened with imprisonment for exposing the murders of protesters by pro-government forces in a May 2018 article titled “!Disparaban con Precisión – a Matar!” (“They Were Shooting Precisely – to Kill!”) “I was able to document close-range bullet wounds to the heads and throats of protesters that could only be execution-style shots,” Miranda told WLRN.

The Rey de España prize is one of the most prestigious journalism awards in Spain and Latin America. Miranda said he wanted to dedicate his Rey de España prize – awarded by a jury in Spain – to imprisoned Nicaraguan journalists Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda, who face terrorism charges that human rights groups call absurd.

http://www.wlrn.org/post/nicaraguan-journalist-exiled-miami-wins-prestigious-prize-and-vindication

https://www.efe.com/efe/espana/agencia-efe/periodistas-de-ocho-paises-iberoamericanos-ganan-los-premios-rey-espana/50000071-3883708

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Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani wins major literary prize putting more pressure on detention policy

February 4, 2019
Behrouz Boochani in November, 2017. Picture: Jason Garman/Amnesty International
Behrouz Boochani in November, 2017. Picture: Jason Garman/Amnesty International

With one of the MEA 2019 final nominees being detained on Manus island in the same way [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/24/breaking-news-ennals-award-announces-its-3-finalists-for-2019/ ] it is relevant to note that another such detainee has won literary awards in Australia! Iranian-Kurdish journalist and poet Behrouz Boochani won the richest Australian Victorian Prize for Literature ($100,000) for his hellish first-hand account of life as a detainee on the island. His book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison, also won the $25,000 prize for nonfiction at Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards on 31 January 2019. (The eligibility criteria requiring that the authors be Australian citizens or permanent residents was overlooked to award the prize.

Mr Boochani told the Herald Sun from Manus Island, where he has been detained for more than five years, that the award was a victory for literature, resistance and humanity. But, he added: “I don’t want to celebrate this achievement while I still see many innocent people suffering around me.

No Friend But The Mountains.

“If I could be there to accept the award I would explain how this award is a morality failure for Australia,” Mr Boochani said. “It is not just a failure on the part of the Australian government but a historical and moral defeat for those parts of the society who have been silent in the face of a barbaric policy over these years…It’s a huge cause of shame for a government that did not recognise us as human beings and did not recognise our human rights. It’s a challenge against a system that has lied to the public over the past years.”.

On 1 February University of Melbourne, followed up with a thoughtful piece on why “Behrouz Boochani’s literary prize cements his status as an Australian writer”

Other Australian authors have also used their voices to bring attention to the plight of asylum seekers. During her acceptance speech for her second Miles Franklin Award in August 2018, Michelle de Kretser chastised politicians for their treatment of refugees on Nauru and Manus Island. To illustrate her point, she read a list of names of asylum seekers who have died there in the past five years. It is tempting to dismiss such actions as gesture politics by an urban elite. But each individual action has served to raise awareness of the Australian government’s policy of “offshore processing” for asylum seekers, and to fuse artistic expression with political activism in a particularly forceful manner.

The author has been awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award (for investigative journalism), the Amnesty International Award (Australian section) and Liberty Victoria’s Empty Chair Award. These humanitarian awards have confirmed Boochani’s rapidly acquired high profile in the literary field. Last night’s news topped all of that to make Boochani the first “non-Australian” author to win the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. The Victorian government established these awards in 1985 to honour Australian writing. The specific challenge this poses to the definition of “Australian writing” can be seen as an intervention by the literary community into the field of politics. If a non-citizen who has never set foot on mainland Australia can win, who counts as an Australian author?…

With no clear solution to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru in sight, the paradox of Boochani’s award success can only contribute further to public debate over the tangled logic of indefinite detention. It shows how cultural practices and political activism can be reconfigured to correspond with the newly created literary currency associated with refugee writing. For now, at least, Boochani is an “Australian writer” because Australia is morally implicated in what he wrote and how he wrote it.

Also won in 2019: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/kurdish-iranian-behrouz-boochani-wins-australian-biography-prize-190812071100746.html

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/12/04/mea-nominee-aziz-abdul-muhamat-suffers-under-australias-endless-detention-policy/

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/manus-island-detainee-behrouz-boochani-wins-literary-prize/news-story/b57918c19d7f4c9a88ef532001b4f164

https://theconversation.com/behrouz-boochanis-literary-prize-cements-his-status-as-an-australian-writer-110986

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Tang Jitian receives his French Republic Human Rights prize in Beijing

January 31, 2019

On 10 December, 2018, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (La Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme) has awarded the annual French Republic Human Rights Prize to six personalities or organizations that have distinguished themselves in their country for the defense and promotion of human rights, and Chinese human rights lawyer Tang Jitian was one of them. He was unable to travel to France to receive the prize. On January 14, 2019, the French Ambassador to China, Mr. Jean-Maurice Ripert, presented him the award in Beijing. For more on this another awards: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/prix-des-droits-de-lhomme-de-la-republique-francaise.

Excerpts from his Acceptance Speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

……Since entering the legal profession, especially after coming to Beijing in 2007, I was determined to use the law to help those who had suffered injustices. In addition to handling human rights cases, I also participated extensively in social actions, one of which was an effort in 2008-09, together with a cohort of lawyers to promote direct elections of the Beijing Lawyers’ Association. This action infuriated the Chinese government, and in April 2010, my license to practice law was revoked. Even though I suffered this blow of losing my normal legal practitioner’s identity, it didn’t stop me from engaging in rights defense work. On the contrary, I threw myself into the work even more actively, including the struggle for lawyers’ own rights and interests. And despite having suffered numerous rounds of forced disappearance and arbitrary detention, accompanied by torture, I nonetheless still had the same intention as before –– to continue to be active in the field of rights defense in China.

Although I’ve been restricted from exiting the country for nearly 10 years, making it impossible for me to fully communicate and work together with the outside world, my view was not completely limited. I still have friends from certain countries who have facilitated my work to varying degrees.

……..Contemporary mainland China has reached a critical juncture: whether to embrace civilization or choose barbarism; whether to practice universal values ​​or push the rules of the jungle; whether to preserve and strengthen the outdated totalitarianism or move toward a new democratic politics –– there is not much time left to waver.  

As a member of civil society, I look forward to China getting on the right track as soon as possible, but those selfish and greedy officials in the government are trying to pull the people back into barbarism. It is difficult to imagine what things would be like to have a China with 1.3 billion people suspended alone for a long period of time outside the civilized world: the deteriorating human rights situation in mainland China is not only a nightmare for the Chinese, but will also be a misfortune for all of humanity.

In the face of this grim situation, groups upon groups of Chinese people eager to live with dignity have fought for their rights and interests in various ways, so that future generations can live in a normal environment, and the Chinese nation will not become a burden to the world. Human rights defenders, including human rights lawyers, are to some extent shouldering a historical responsibility. As one of them, I hope they will receive more understanding, attention, support, and assistance from the international community.

……I will work together with other human rights defenders, from a new starting point, to make a due contribution to the protection of human rights and the advancement of the rule of law...

 

https://chinachange.org/2019/01/30/acceptance-speech-for-the-2018-french-republic-human-rights-prize/

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Gender equality awards in the Emirates: all the winners are men

January 29, 2019

On 28 January 2019 Adam Taylor reported in the Washington Post that “the United Arab Emirates drew mockery this weekend after announcing the winners of its gender balance awards — every one of whom was a man”. For a blog with special interest in awards that is hard to resist!

At an awards ceremony Sunday, the UAE named the winners of its Gender Balance Index for the second round of 2018 in three categories: best personality supporting gender balance, best federal authority supporting gender balance and the best gender balance initiative. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, gave out the awards, which were accepted by an all-male cast.

In a news release, Maktoum said that gender equality was in the spirit of the founding father of the Emirates: “The achievements of Emirati women today reaffirm the wise vision of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who believed in the importance of the role of women, and their right to work and become key partners in society.”

But the fact that there were zero women among the winners announced Sunday drew widespread criticism and mockery. According to the news release put out by the Dubai media office, Maktoum “recognized the efforts” of one woman — Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum — but she did not win an award. She is the head of the UAE’s Gender Balance Council and wife of a deputy prime minister. “During the Index’s second edition, recipients of the Index’s awards happened to be entities led by men,” the UAE Gender Balance Council said in a statement after the award’s received media attention. “This is indicative of the great and extraordinary progress we have made as a nation, where men in the UAE are proactively working alongside women to champion gender balance as a national priority.”

To be fair: In previous years, the UAE’s Gender Balance Index has honored women and the UAE is the highest-ranked Persian Gulf state for gender equality and second only to Israel in the wider Middle East, according to the United Nations. The country was listed as 34th among nations in a 2017 ranking, just behind Poland.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/28/uae-gender-equality-awards-all-winners-were-men/?utm_term=.84ffb3b4f38a

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Three NGOs urge you to nominate Ilham Tohti for the Rafto Prize

January 29, 2019
Photo courtesy of the Radio Free Asia

On 28 January, 2019, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and Norwegian Uyghur Committee (NUK) announced that they have nominated the Chinese human rights defender Ilham Tohti for the Rafto Prize. With the completion of five years of his arrest, the organisations believe his peaceful trajectory in defense of the freedom and fully enjoyment of human rights by the Uyghur population in China is deserving of this prestigious prize. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/01/15/today-ilham-tohti-completes-his-fourth-year-in-chinese-detention/.

[Ilham Tohti served as a professor of economics at Minzu University in Beijing where he specialized in research focused on Uyghur-Han relations, China’s ethnic policies and East Turkistan. Alongside his scholarship and teaching, Ilham is revered for establishing and maintaining Uyghur Online, a website dedicated to promoting Uyghur human rights and improved relations between Uyghur and Han Chinese people. Professor Tohti criticised oppressive policies against Uyghurs and wrote extensively on constructive approaches to overcome unequal treatment between ethnic groups. Notably, he called for dialogue and reconciliation, using his web platform as the primary vehicle. For his efforts, he was arrested by Chinese authorities on January 15, 2014. Despite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finding his detention to be arbitrary in March 2014, Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in September of that year on charges of “separatism” after just a two-day trial. The legal process involving Tohti was met with significant issues throughout. His lawyers were unable to meet him for six months following the initial arrest, his defense team was not provided with complete evidence by the prosecutor, nor were their requested witnesses allowed to testify during the trial. Ilham has been serving his life sentence since December 2014 at Urumqi’s No. 1 Prison. Since then, he has been allowed very few visits from his family. Complicating this has been his continued detention in Urumqi, despite his family living in Beijing – a likely punitive move from Beijing. ChinaChange has noted that Tohti has been held in solitary confinement until at least early 2016 and has been denied the right to communicate with family and friends aside from minimal visits. The WUC gathered 132 scholars and 19 civil society organisations in an open letter to urge the Chinese government to release Ilham Tohti from his arbitrary detention of the five-year anniversary of his arrest in January 2019.]  

In 2014 Mr. Tohti was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. On October 11, 2016, Tohti was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. In 2017 he received the Weimar Prize (https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/07/05/uyghur-human-rights-defender-ilham-tohti-wins-also-weimar-human-rights-prize/). He was also nominated for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2016. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/10/15/martin-ennals-award-2016-relive-the-ceremony-in-13-minutes-or-in-full/

The WUC,the UNPO and the NUK encourage scholars and organisations to join in nominating Ilham Tohti. The deadline for nominations is Friday, February 1st. As the situation in East Turkistan continues to deteriorate, with more than one million innocent Uyghurs arbitrarily detained in internment camps and the Uyghur people facing unparalleled repression, Ilham Tohti’s life and work stands as an inspiration to continue the peaceful struggle for peace, understanding

https://unpo.org/article/21350

 

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Sasakawa Yōhei of Japan wins International Gandhi Peace Prize 2018

January 26, 2019

On January 16 2019, the government of India announced that the International Gandhi Peace Prize for 2018 would go to Nippon Foundation Chairman Sasakawa Yōhei, for his efforts toward eradicating Hansen’s disease (leprosy) in India and elsewhere around the world.

Nippon Foundation Chairman Sasakawa Yōhei.
Nippon Foundation Chairman Sasakawa Yōhei.

Sasakawa, now 80, has worked for more than half of his life to combat Hansen’s disease and the social stigma associated with it. Serving in recent years as the World Health Organization’s Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, he has focused in particular on India, which has the world’s largest population of sufferers of the disease, making repeated visits to the colonies where they were historically segregated and promoting measures to restore their economic autonomy and combat prejudice against them in society.

Asked for comment, Sasakawa remarked: “It was a tremendous honor to receive word of this recognition in this, the 150th year since the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, who strove during his life to secure proper treatment for Hansen’s disease sufferers.”

For more information on this award and 3 others with Gandhi in their name see: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/gandhi-peace-prize-india.

https://www.nippon.com/en/news/l00245/japan’s-sasakawa-yohei-wins-international-gandhi-peace-prize-for-hansen’s-disease-work.html

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Call for nominations for 40th edition Right Livelihood Award

January 24, 2019

2019 will see the Right Livelihood Award being presented for the 40th time. The RLF maintains an open nomination process, so anyone is able to propose any individual or organisation they feel are creating structural changes through concrete and successful work. The deadline for submitting a nomination is 1 March, 2019.  For more on this and other such award see: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/right-livelihood-award

Read more about the nomination process here.  Do not hesitate to contact the RLF via email at research@rightlivelihood.org or by phone at +41 (0)22 555 0943 if you have questions about the nomination process.  As is stated in the guidelines, proposals for the award must remain confidential and will not be published, as publicising of a proposal will unfortunately result in disqualification.

 

For last year’s winners: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/09/24/laureates-of-the-2018-right-livelihood-award-announced/

https://mailchi.mp/rightlivelihood/2019-call-for-proposals?e=24f028b242

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Human Rights films likely to be nominated for best documentary Oscar on 24 February

January 23, 2019

Human Rights Watch reports that five of the 15 shortlisted films for Best Documentary are human rights films that featured in the 2018 and 2019 Human Rights Watch Film Festivals. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/02/15/trailer-for-human-rights-watch-film-festival-2018-in-london/]

Ascensión Mendieta enters the cemetery where her father’s remains have are buried in a mass grave.
Ascensión Mendieta enters the cemetery where her father’s remains have are buried in a mass grave. © 2019 Modesto Aranda

So the likelihood that tomorrow – 24 February – one or more are included in the final nominee list is pretty high.Here’s a quick guide to the five HRWFF title that made the short list.

Charm City

Working with local journalists and spending more than three years with communities in Baltimore, Maryland, has made for one of the most unassuming films we have seen on policing and racism in the U.S. This brilliant film was directed by Marilyn Ness (who produced E-Team, a film featuring Human Rights Watch researchers working in crisis situations). 

The Distant Barking of Dogs

A hauntingly beautiful film, The Distant Barking of Dogsby Simon Lereng Wilmont embeds the viewer into the lives of two young boys growing up in eastern Ukraine on the conflict’s frontline. The film captures the boys’ diminishing innocence in the midst of war, while bringing to the fore the most basic human rights of life, liberty, and security. 

Minding the Gap

Filmmaker Bing Liu shares a coming-of-age story shot over 12 years in Rockford, Illinois, where he captured footage of himself and two friends, young men bound by a love of skateboarding and the desire to escape volatile family life. The film grapples with the cycles of shame and abuse in a town with some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the U.S. While navigating a relationship between his camera, his friends, and his past, Liu weaves a rich and epic story while remaining intimate and immersive. 

 

On Her Shoulders

This film by Alexandria Bombach accompanies Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, a member of Iraq’s Yazidi community who escaped sexual slavery under ISIS, as she bears the weight of her community’s trauma in the pursuit of international action. A departure from traditional biopics, the camera turns on us as bystanders, journalists, news consumers – challenging us to question our demand for more stories without helping solve the problems. [see also https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/21/on-her-shoulders-tells-the-story-of-human-rights-defender-nadia-murad-2018-nobel-peace-prize/]

The Silence of Others

Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar’s film has won awards around the world, shedding light on a dark era of Spain’s history that haunts it to this day. Under General Francisco Franco’s rule, it is estimated that 100,000 people were disappeared and murdered. With its “Amnesty Law,” Spain prohibited legal recourse by survivors and families. The film follows brave people, assisted by others navigating international criminal processes in Chile and Guatemala, as they break the silence and seek justice. 

In the last few years, the Academy Awards nominees for Best Documentary have diversified, as the Academy expanded the number of its members able to vote for documentaries, and increased the number of women and people of color who are members.  We hope this will open up additional opportunities and support for people to tell their stories and share their perspectives, 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/21/oscars-documentary-shortlist-and-human-rights

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