The selection panel of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which rewards outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Award.
Meeting in Prague, the panel – made up of independent figures from the world of human rights and chaired by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Theodoros Rousopoulos – decided to shortlist the following three nominees, in alphabetical order:
Akif Gurbanov, Azerbaijan
The nominee is a human rights defender, political activist and active member of the Azerbaijani civil society. He is the co-founder of the Institute of Democratic Initiative (IDI) and of the Third Republic Platform. He was arrested in March 2024 in a wave of arrests targeting journalists and activists in the country.
María Corina Machado, Venezuela
The nominee is a leading political figure in Venezuela engaged in denouncing human rights abuses in her country and defending democracy and the rule of law. She is the co-founder of the Venezuelan volunteer civil organisation ‘Súmate’ for civil and political freedom, rights and citizen participation.
Babutsa Pataraia, Georgia
The nominee is a leading feminist activist and human rights lawyer in Georgia. She is the Director of ‘Sapari’, an NGO focusing on women’s rights and providing support for victims of violence since 2013. She has worked for over a decade to fight against feminicide, sexual violence against women, and sexual harassment.
Human Rights First announced a call for nominations for the 2024 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award. Nominations are due by September 23, 2024.
“Honoring those who champion human rights despite immense personal risk is at the heart of what we do,” said Human Rights First President and CEO Sue Hendrickson. “This award stands as a testament to the power of individuals to make a difference, even in the face of adversity.”
UN experts called on the Tunisian authorities to respect the right to judicial guarantees and judicial protection of Sihem Bensedrine, who was arrested on 1 August 2024.
“In a context marked by the suppression of numerous dissenting voices, the arrest of Ms Bensedrine raises serious concerns about the respect of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in Tunisia and has a chilling effect on journalists, human rights defenders and civil society in general,” the experts said.
Bensedrine is the former President of the Truth and Dignity Commission (TVD) which documented the crimes committed under previous regimes, and a journalist who has long denounced human rights violations in the country.
Since 2021, she has been involved in a judicial investigation into the alleged falsification of a chapter in the TVD´s final report regarding corruption in the banking system. The independent human rights experts have already held discussions with the Tunisian government concerning this investigation.
“This arrest could amount to judicial harassment of Ms Bensedrine for work she has undertaken as President of the Truth and Dignity Commission,” the experts said. “It appears to be aimed at discrediting information contained in the Commission’s report, which could give rise to legal proceedings against alleged perpetrators of corruption under the previous regimes.”
The Special Rapporteurs urged Tunisia to uphold its obligation to protect members of commissions of enquiry into gross human rights violations from defamation and civil or criminal proceedings brought against them because of their work, or the content of their reports.
“We call for strict respect for Ms Bensedrine’s right to judicial guarantees, including the right to a fair trial by due process, impartiality and independence, and for an end to abusive proceedings and reprisals against her.”
Right Livelihood’s advocacy team delivered a statement at the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva calling for Member States to stop retaliating against environmental defenders. The statement highlighted the struggles of Right Livelihood Laureates from Cambodia, Kenya and Nicaragua, where activists leading the fight against climate change face unlawful arrests, armed attacks and police violence, among other forms of oppression, for their peaceful activities.
Right Livelihood Laureates from Cambodia, Nicaragua and Kenya who are leading the fight against climate change are being attacked by their governments, a concerning trend Right Livelihood says the Council has a responsibility to reverse.
Addressing the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights in the context of climate change, Right Livelihood asked, “How can the Council better address reprisals against environmental defenders playing a key role in the fight against climate change?”
Similarly, in Kenya, Laureate Phyllis Omido and her organisation the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action have been targeted by the government for organising against business interests that jeopardise the environment.
In May, Omido and local community leaders came under threat when police brutalised protestors for opposing a nuclear project in a biodiverse area between the Watamu National Marine Park and the Arabuko Sokoke Forest. Police fired 137 live rounds and 70 tear gas canisters.
“Investigations into such crimes are rare, and those speaking out face severe reprisals,” we told the Council.
Wefinished our statement by highlighting the situation in Nicaragua, where Indigenous communities protecting their land are attacked, forcefully displaced and killed by illegal settlers involved in mining and cattle trading.
Humanists International announced on 24 June 2024 that it has awarded grants to 13 projects worldwide. This initiative, awarding a total of £36,300 through the 2024 Grants Program, provides financial support to bolster humanist endeavors and empower organizations working to advance humanist values across the globe.
The grant program in 2024 was made possible thanks to a very generous legacy gift left to the organization by the late Professor Dabir Tehrani, who was a long-standing supporter of Humanists International.
The call for applications, opened from April to May, attracted a wide range of proposals. Selected projects, kicking off this month, will continue until January 2025. Grants were awarded exclusively to Members and Associates of Humanists International, focusing on five key areas:
Development Grants: Supporting the growth and sustainability of humanist organizations, particularly in developing countries.
Digital Humanism Grants: Encouraging projects that utilize technology to promote humanist values online.
Humanist Ceremonies Grants: Building capacity for humanist celebrants to offer alternative ceremonies like weddings and funerals.
Regional Networking Meetings Grants: Facilitating gatherings and collaboration between humanist organizations within specific regions.
Young Humanist Grants: Empowering young people to become active participants in the humanist movement.
For members interested in applying for future grants, Humanists International also offers the year-round Cafe Humaniste Grant. This program supports small, in-person, or online gatherings where members can discuss any topic related to humanism.
Dooyum Dominic Ingye, Project Head at Advocacy for Alleged Witches, one of the grant recipients, said:
“We are truly honored and grateful that the Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW) has been selected to receive the Humanists International Development Grant for our project. This funding will make a significant difference in our ability to advocate for justice, provide legal aid, and empower alleged witches to stand up against the discrimination and violence they face.”
Javan Lev Poblador, Membership Development Officer of Humanists International, commented:
“We are delighted to support these 13 projects making a tangible difference in local and international communities by promoting humanism. These grants will equip our Members and Associates with vital resources to grow and extend their impact.”
But many, such as the NGO ARTICLE 19, have a warning: However, this is not a slam-dunk win for press freedom. The US should have never brought these charges. The single remaining criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents puts investigative journalism at severe risk in the United States and beyond. Journalists that cover national security, the armed forces and defence do this day in and day out as part of providing transparency and accountability to hold abuses of power in check.
‘We are all at risk if the government can hold an archaic law, the Espionage Act, over the heads of journalists to silence them.’ The charge under the Espionage Act undermines the principles of media freedom, accountability, and independent journalism that Assange, his legal team, and campaigners had championed throughout his case, which began in 2012. The fact that his release from Belmarsh prison is a result of plea deal is a clear reminder of how important it is to redouble our efforts defending media freedom and pushing for accountability.
The Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize, sponsored by the European Commission (EU), is inviting applications that recognise excellence in writing, radio, and broadcast journalism on the theme of development, democracy, and human rights around the world. Sewe: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/D49ECF35-4B42-444D-B4FA-F7ACE2BF65BC
This year’s contest is focused on related issues of gender equality, human development, climate, environment and energy, digital and infrastructure, sustainable growth and jobs, youth, migration and forced displacement, peace, and governance.
The application encouraged journalists committed to defending democracy and human rights can enter a competition.
The contest has four award categories: Best Emerging Journalist, Investigative Journalism, Feature Journalism, and Special Photojournalism.
Works must have been published or broadcast between May 30, 2023, and May 24, 2024.
On 11 June 2024 it was revealed that Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has been awarded the Templeton Prize, an honour that commends those who have used their scholarly paths to explore “the deepest questions about humanity and the universe”,
The South African professor, psychologist, has been commended for career-defining victories including winning the Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award (2020) and a fellowship at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, not to mention the leadership positions she hold. Professor Gobodo-Madikizela is the SARChi Chair for Violent Histories and Historical Trauma, the Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ). Notably, she was also an influential member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Through her work, the professor has been imperative to knowledge on the transgenerational impact of historical traumas. The John Templeton Foundation’s president, Heather Dill spotlighted Prof Gobodo-Madikizela as “a guiding light within South Africa as it charts a course beyond apartheid, facilitating dialogue to help people overcome individual and collective trauma.”
For the acclaimed professor, the Templeton Prize is a gracious gift (it is a prize of £1.1 million: “I am excited that I can use the Templeton Prize to help fund our postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows at a time of reduced funding all-round,” said the professor who has pledged to donate R8 million to Stellenbosch University.
I am not a professional obituary writer, but I surely wished I were, as writing about my dear friend Leah Levin deserves the best possible skills. Fortunately, I received some excellent input from her caring family of which I am making good use. A celebration of Leah’s life will be held by the family on 13 June, 4 pm BST which can also be followed online.
Leah Levin, was a well-known figure in the international human rights movement of the 1970’s and onwards. She died of cardiac arrest on 25 May, 2024, at the formidable age of 98. For over half a century, she served and led a range of human rights organisations and collaborated globally with some of the world’s leading activists. For which she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex in 1992 and an OBE in 2001.
She was the author of UNESCO’s “Human Rights: Questions and Answers”, one of the world’s most widely disseminated books on human rights, (translated into more than 30 languages).
From 1982-1992, she was director of JUSTICE, a pioneering organisation that sought to right miscarriages of justice and which was a national section of the International Commission of Jurists . She served as a board member or trustee of the United Nations Association, the Anti-Slavery Society, International Alert, Redress, Readers International and The International Journal of Human Rights. But most of all, I remember her from the work she did to make sure that we would not forget one of our most impressive friends: Martin Ennals, who had led Amnesty from 1968 to 1980 and had been one of her closest friends until his death in 1981. [see his biography in the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, OUP, 2009, Vol 2, pp 135-138].
Frances D’Souza, said about Leah: “without any pretension she was nearly always right. She hit the nail on the head whether dealing with world affairs or people. She made a significant difference by her wise counsel and fact that she could really see what the issues were, read the situation and do something about it.”
Leah Levin had the special talent to draw other like-minded people to her and help coalesce a community of activists with whom she would collaborate throughout her entire life.
Her own life story is one of human rights struggle: Leah was born Sarah Leah Kacev on 1 April 1926 in Lithuania. She grew up as Leah Katzeff in Piketberg, South Africa, a small, rural town in Western Cape to where the family had to flee to escape poverty and anti-Semitism in the difficult years after the First World War and Russian revolution. Leah was the first of four children and the first person in her family to go to university. She graduated in 1945, when at the end of the second world war, the Katzeffs found out that their family along with their entire Jewish community in Mazeikiai, had been murdered by local Lithuanians organized by the Germans in the very first days of the Nazi advance in 1941.
In 1947 she married Archie Levin, fifteen years her senior. Like Leah, Archie was the child of European Jewish immigrants. Together they set up a new business, writing travel guides to Central and Southern Africa. In 1960, disgusted by the repression of anti-apartheid protest, the couple moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with their two children Michal and Jeremy. A third son, David, was born in Salisbury (now Harare).
In Rhodesia, Leah completed a second degree in international relations at the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, while her husband became politically active. His activities angered those in power; shortly before Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence. Archie was tipped off that he was likely to be arrested. He rapidly left for the UK with his daughter Michal and later was joined by his son Jeremy; a few months later, Leah and her infant son David joined the rest of the family in the UK.
In London, Leah found a volunteer post as Secretary of the newly founded United Nations Association. The UNA human rights committee brought together people who became lifelong friends as well as colleagues: Martin Ennals, Sir Nigel Rodney, Amnesty’s first legal officer and later UN rapporteur on torture, and Kevin Boyle, who ran the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex. After the death in 1977 of her husband Archie, Leah threw herself still more wholeheartedly into human rights work. In 1978, she took a job as Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, which connected her to the United Nations in Geneva. And in 1982 she moved to run JUSTICE for a decade. In 1992, she co-founded Redress, representing victims of torture to obtain justice and reparation for them.
Even when fully retired Leah continued to keep an active interest in children and grandchildren as well as her human rights “children”. I will bitterly miss her almost yearly phone calls to check on me to make sure I am doing the right thing.
On 31 May 2024, Front Line Defenders announced the five winners of its top distinction, the 2024 Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, at a special ceremony in Dublin this morning. Laureates from each of the major global regions travelled to Ireland to accept the Award, including:
Africa: Gamito dos Santos Carlos of AJOPAZ, the Youth Association for Peace (Mozambique)
Americas: The Trans women collective Muñecas de Arcoíris (Honduras), represented by Jennifer Bexara Córdova
Asia and the Pacific: Sammi Deen Baloch of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (Balochistan, Pakistan)
Europe and Central Asia: Doros Polykarpou of KISA (Cyprus)
Middle East and North Africa: We Are Not Numbers (Gaza, Palestine), represented by Ahmed Alnaouq
“Given the immensity of the challenges we face and the adverse forces working against human rights in many parts of the world, it might seem tempting to lose hope that a better world is even possible,” said Alan Glasgow, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders. “But these courageous human rights defenders have defied that temptation and inspire us to keep hope alive. They say ‘no’ to the perpetrators and ‘yes’ to optimism – they know a fairer, more equal, rights-respecting world is worth fighting for.
Gamito dos Santos Carlos, a human rights defender from Nampula, northern Mozambique, is the executive director of AJOPAZ, the Youth Association for Peace. His human rights work centres around social, civil and political rights and accountability. Gamito has been advocating for the protection of human rights activists and engaging with young people to advocate for significant social change in his community, to foster justice and sustainable decision-making by authorities. He is also a member of the Friends of Amurane Association for a Better Mozambique -KÓXUKHURO, as well as an analyst and Provincial Coordinatorof the Mozambican Network of Human Rights Defenders (RMDDH). He has faced ongoing intimidation for his human rights work, including repeated raids on his home and the loss of his job, and in March 2023 he was kidnapped and tortured after he organised a demonstration.
Muñecas de Arcoíris (Rainbow Dolls) is a collective of trans women from the city of Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela in Honduras, founded in 2008. Muñecas works under the LGTBI+ Arcoíris Association of Honduras with the aim of creating a safe space for trans sex worker women. The members of Muñecas started as volunteers of the Arcoíris Association, where they became more aware of the situation that trans people were facing in Honduras. With the support of the Arcoíris Association, Muñecas members received training related to their rights as LGTBI+ people. They then started to document human rights violations specifically against trans women in 2006 and two years later, on 31 October 2008, the collective was formally created as a trans women organisation. Most of its members are sex workers, informal workers, stylists, and housekeepers,among others.
Sammi Deen Baloch is a Baloch woman human rights defender from Mashkai, Awaran District of Balochistan province,Pakistan. She is the General Secretary of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), a non-governmental organisation that represents and supports victims and relatives of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. In June 2009, at the age of 10, Sammi’s father, Dr Deen Mohammed Baloch, was forcibly disappeared in Khuzdar, Balochistan. She began persistently campaigning for the release of her father, which further led to her deeper, collective involvement in advocating against enforced disappearances in Balochistan by state forces.
Doros Polykarpou is a leading human rights defender and founding member of KISA (the Movement for Equality, Support, and Anti-Racism). He is an expert on migration, asylum, discrimination, racism, and trafficking in Cyprus. For over 27 years, he has dedicated himself to defending and advocating for the rights of people on the move and tackling discrimination and xenophobia in Cyprus, navigating the unique socio-political environment of the small island nation with strong conservative elements. This has exposed him and the organisation to a backlash, and earlier this year KISA’s office was targeted by a bomb attack. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/01/19/attack-against-cypriot-anti-racism-ngo-kisa/]
We Are Not Numbers (WANN) is a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project established in the Gaza Strip in 2014, with the aim of telling the everyday, human stories of thousands of Palestinians. Their vision is to spread Palestinian voices and narratives, based on respect for human rights through the work of peaceful, non-violent, youth led Palestinians. When co-founder Ahmed Alnaouq lost his 23-year-old brother, Ayman, during an Israeli military attack on Palestinians in the summer of 2014, he was devastated, and sunk into a depression from which he thought he would never escape. During this time, he met American journalist Pam Bailey, who encouraged him to celebrate his brother’s legacy by writing a story about him. Like many young people in Gaza, Ahmed was majoring in English literature to improve his language skills. Pam published the story on a Western news website, which was well-received beyond expectation. Ahmed and Pam realised that writing the story had brought some healing to him and that this could be done on a much bigger platform.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 