Archive for the 'awards' Category
March 7, 2015
While on the subject of awards for human rights, I see that I missed the announcement of the winners of the Human Rights award of the French Republic (Prix des Droits de l’homme de la République française) which was made on 9 December 2014. With apologies here it is:
Five NGOs each received 14 000 € to implement their projects which are in line with the two themes selected by the Jury that year: child exploitation and rights of women:
- Aurélie Socias, representing the French NGO Sengsavang (formerly called AFESIP Laos).
- Agnès Razafindramanga Leteurtre representing the NGO “Enfance et malnutrition” working in Madagascar.
- Patricia Beltran, for the NGO Enda El Alto, in Bolivia.
- Mokhtar Bassant for the Foundation Gozour (meaning roots) from Egypt.
- Harivola Rakotoarindrasata for the Focus Development Association from Madagascar.
5 special mentions as encouragement were also made:
- The Anh Duong association in Vietnam
- The Shakti Samuha association in Nepal
- The association Women’s Empowerment Link in Kenya
- The Fight Against Child Exploitation Foundation (FACE) in Thailand
- The association Cepaz in Venezuela.
For more information especially on the work by these NGOs see the official press release (in French):Justice / Portail / Remise du Prix des Droits de l’homme de la République française.
For more information on this or other awards: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/prix-des-droits-de-lhomme-de-la-république-française
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Tags: awards, Bolivia, child abuse, Egypt, Enda El Alto (NGO), Enfance et malnutrition (NGO), Focus Development Association, Gozour (NGO), Human Rights award of the French Republic, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, human rights of women, Laos, Madagascar, Prix des Droits de l’homme, République française, Sengsavang (NGO)
March 7, 2015
Jury announces the Finalists for the 2015 Front Line Defenders Award
On Wednesday 4 March the Jury for the 2015 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk announced the 5 finalists for this year, all of whom are either in jail, in hiding or face the threat of jail because of their peaceful work defending the rights of others:
Juan Carlos Flores Solís Mexico, an environmental rights campaigner, was recently released from prison, but has a charge pending, because he led the opposition of local peasant and indigenous communities to the construction of a gas pipeline on their land near an active volcano.
Diane Marie Rodríguez Zambrano Ecuador, LGBTI rights activist and the first trans woman to stand for public office in Ecuador is currently living in a safe house following death threats because of her work promoting the rights of the transgender community.
Guo Feixiong a Chinese legal activist, also known has Yang Maodong, has been repeatedly jailed and brutally tortured for challenging corruption, defending the rights of human rights defenders, minority groups and small farmers whose land had been confiscated. He is currently in prison awaiting sentencing.
Rasul Jafarov one of the most prominent HRDs in Azerbaijan, was arrested on bogus charges of “ illegal enterprise, tax evasion, and abuse of official power. A lawyer by profession, Rasul Jafarov is Head of the Human Rights Club and Coordinator of the Art for Democracy campaign, which has launched several campaigns against politically-motivated imprisonment, including the Sing for Democracy campaign which took place in the run-up to the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2012. His is still in detention and his trial is ongoing.
Yara Sallam – Egypt is a human rights lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). On 21 June 2014, she was arrested with other protesters during a peaceful demonstration against the controversial “Protest Law”. On 29 October 2014, Yara, and a number of other activists, were convicted on these charges, despite the absence of credible evidence and clear inconsistencies in police reports of the event. She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment,three years’ police monitoring and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian Pounds (approx. €1,098). This sentence was later reduced on appeal to two years’ imprisonment, two years’ monitoring and no fine.
The winner will be announced at an event in Dublin’s City Hall on 1 May.
via Finalists for the 2015 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk | Front Line.
Posted in awards, Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Azerbaijan, China, Diane Marie Rodríguez Zambrano, Ecuador, Egypt, Front Line (NGO), Guo Feixiong, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Juan Carlos Flores Solís, Mexico, nominees, Rasul Jafarov, Yang Maodong, Yara Sallam
February 1, 2015
The Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation is extending its call for nominations for the 2015 Award till 30 April 2015. This prize rewards an individual, a group or an organisation whose original and daring initiatives have brought people in conflict in war-torn societies towards reconciliation. For more information on the award see: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/sergio-vieira-de-mello-prize
Nominations should use the form on the website and submit it by email to info[at]sergiovdmfoundation.org, or by post : Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation, 29 rue des Allobroges, 1227 Carouges, Geneva, Switzerland.
Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation.
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Tags: awards, call for nominations, deadline, digest of human rights awards, human rights awards, peace, reconciliation, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation, THF
January 28, 2015
Recipients of the honorary awards given by Manusher Jonno Foundation, standing behind, with the guests sitting in front, in the capital’s Bangla Academy yesterday, at the award giving ceremony marking Human Rights Day. Photo: Star
A nice little item left-over from Human Rights Day 2014. How human rights awards play at the local level:
Ten human rights defenders from the grassroots level, two eminent social workers with international recognition, and a female football player were given honorary awards by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) yesterday. The works of the activists focused on land rights, prevention of violence against women, child rights, and the rights of the indigenous people. The 10 grassroots activists were Jharna Ray, Madhobilata Chakma, and Nomita Chakma of Khagrachhari, Birendra Sangma of Mymensingh, Shafique Ullah of Noakhali, Kachhim Uddin of Tangail, Kananbala Gupta of Narail, Umme Kulsum Ranjana of Bogra, Kalpana Tirki of Rajshahi, and Rahela of Dinajpur.
Two social workers Jharna Dhara Chowdhury, chief of Noakhali’s Gandhi Ashram, and Angela Gomes, executive director of Bachte Shekha, were also honoured along with Bipasha Mali, a young footballer who was recently called to play on the national women’s football team.
Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said, “They don’t work for recognition. Yet when we value their contributions, it makes us proud and we get inspiration to work.”
MJF honours 10 grassroots human rights defenders | Two social workers, a young female footballer also receive the honorary awards.
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: activism, awards, Bangladesh, child rights, football, honorary awards, human rights awards, Human Rights Day, Human Rights Defenders, Land issues, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), women human rights defenders, youth
January 21, 2015
The 2015 selection process for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award is now open. Deadline: 6 March 2015
For more information regarding the eligibility criteria, please visit the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights website.
Also the Lawyers for Lawyers Award (L4L award] is now open for nomination for the L4L Award is open.
Only those nominations submitted via the
nomination form on the website will be taken into consideration. Deadline 15 February 2015
The nomination form is available on: http://www.advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/award/ and other information is available on: http://www.advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/l4l-award/?/.
——
For more information on these and other human rights awards, see the Digest of THF: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/
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Tags: awards, call for nominations, digest of human rights awards, eligibility criteria, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, L4L, Lawyers for Lawyers, RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
December 22, 2014
As a relative specialist on human rights awards [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/my-post-number-1000-human-rights-awards-finally-made-accessible-for-and-by-true-heroes/], I would be amiss not to relate the following ‘problem’ with a human rights award in Zimbabwe. The local NGO ZimRights gave a number of human rights awards and ended up having to defend the People’s Choice Award, which had been attributed to a ZANU-PF MP Joseph Chinotimba. A number of human rights defenders activists protested as they said it as was wrong to honour a war veteran who is known to have led violent farm invasions which claimed lives and displaced thousands of people.
Buhera-South MP Joseph Chinotimba
ZimRights has responded by saying that the People’s Choice Award is not [really] a Human Rights Defender Award but is an award “linked to the raising of pertinent developmental issues in the nation using platforms that one has access to”. It also explained that the nominees were selected by the people in all ZimRights’ eleven provinces and when votes were tallied Hon Chinotimba emerged as the winner. ZimRights said they take this result as a challenge and lesson on future education and human rights voting. The 3rd Edition of the Community Human Rights Defenders Award was held in Bulawayo last week on Thursday and the controversy may have obscured that the Overall Human Rights Defender of the Year was awarded to Rebecca Chisamba, a television talk show host. The New Zimbabwe report on 21 December added that “It is not clear what has endeared Chinotimba to the people but a few months ago the comical legislator arrived in Victoria Falls where he bought 200 cases of beer for the revellers at a local beer garden. Chinos, as the Buhera South MP is affectionately known, also pledged to pay school fees for over 20 school children at Chinotimba School which he claims is named after his ancestor.”
ZimRights defends Chinotimba’s award.
Another paper, Newsday, on 22 December, reported that the MP in question, perhaps in response to the criticism, “stunned the more than 200 invited guests that included donor agencies, MPs, civil society leaders, community human rights defenders and commissioners of a variety commissions when he turned down the holiday offer and requested that the money be channelled towards improving infrastructure in his constituency” [The prize was a paid holiday at Victoria Falls with his wife.]
[Chinotimba came into the political limelight in 2000 when he together with the late war veterans’ leader Chenjerai Hunzvi led violent farm invasions and later stormed then High Court judge Justice James Devitte’s chambers in protest against his court rulings on land issues. Since his election into Parliament last year, Chinotimba has generated a lot of controversy through his fearless debates.]
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2014/12/22/will-spend-prize-poor-not-holiday-chinotimba/
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Tags: award, Buhera-South, Chinos, human rights award, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, Joseph Chinotimba, New Zimbabwe, Newsday, Rebecca Chisamba, violence, woman human rights defender, ZANU PF, Zimbabwe, ZimRights
December 19, 2014
Not a shocking story but an excellent illustration of how to motivate students through meeting Human Rights Defenders in person:
Thirty three staff and students of the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), Tipperary were in Strasbourg last November as guests of the European Parliament’s Human Rights committee. The group spent three days in the French city. They were given a seminar on the European Parliament. However the main purpose of the visit was to attend a workshop with Human Rights Defenders from across the world. They met students involved in the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine and a young woman pleading for the lives of her imprisoned parents in Azerbaijan.
However the most heart wrenching and inspiring words came from Dr Denis Mukwege, a doctor from the Congo who has dedicated his life to treating women who are victims of the brutal conflict in the east of his country. Dr Mukwege was in Strasbourg to receive the Sakharov Prize for freedom of speech and the Tipperary students were part of a delegation of young people invited to meet with him and other nominees. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/congolese-gynecologist-wins-europes-sakharov-prize-in-2014/]
He told the group that it was the womens’ courage and stories of recovery that kept him motivated. All present felt honoured to be invited to such a prestigious event and urged everybody to remember those struggling against injustice. For more information on the groups visit: Social Community Studies facebook page at LIT
News – LIT-Tipperary-Students-Meet-Human-Rights-Defenders.
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Tags: Azerbaijan, Democratic Republic Congo, Denis Mukwege, EP, Human Rights committee of the European Parliament, Human Rights Defenders, human rights education, Ireland, Limerick Institute of Technology, Sakharov Prize, Strasbourg, students, Ukraine
December 16, 2014
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(Olof Palme – Photo: TT)
The Stockholm-based Olof Palme Memorial Fund said in a statement today that the Chinese pro-democracy activist Xu Youyu, who was among key signatories of a 2008 manifesto seeking sweeping political reforms in China, has won the Olof Palme human rights prize [http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/olof-palme-prize]. Born in 1947, Xu is a philosophy professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and was one of the most prominent signatories of the 2008 Charter 08 manifesto that urged a series of reforms in China. He was detained in May this year in a crackdown on dissent ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“He has worked consistently for a democratisation of Chinese society, while condemning any form of violence as a political method,” the Fund stated. “Through his research and dialogue-oriented debate articles, Xu Youyu has made a great contribution to the peaceful and democratic development in China.”
http://www.thelocal.se/20141216/chinese-activist-xu-youyu-wins-swedish-rights-prize
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Tags: China, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Democracy, digest of human rights awards, human rights award, Human rights defender, illegal detention, labour movement, Olof Palme Memorial Fund, Olof Palme Prize, political reforms, Sweden, Xu Youyu
December 15, 2014
Former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden was given the Carl von Ossietzky Medal in Berlin on Sunday, a medal which honors those who exhibit extraordinary civic courage or commitment to the spread and defense of human rights. According to website of the International League for Human Rights in Berlin, which has awarded the prize since 1962, Snowden was chosen because of his “momentous decision of conscience … to put [his] personal freedom on the line” to expose the “abuse of power” exercised by the US and Germany.
Snowden shares the medal with Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke his story, along with Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who was in Berlin to accept it on the whole trio’s behalf [Snowden appeared on skype]. Several speeches were given, including one from former federal Interior Minister Gerhart Baum and human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck, who represents Snowden. Baum spoke of how the Snowden had “opened our eyes to the largest intelligence surveillance scandal I know.” See more: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/snowden/
The von Ossietzky medal is named after the German Nobel Peace Prize winner who spoke out actively against the Nazi regime. Not to be confused with two other awards in the name of Ossietzky.
Edward Snowden gets human rights award in Berlin | News | DW.DE | 14.12.2014.
Posted in awards, films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 3 Comments »
Tags: Baum, Berlin, Carl von Ossietzky Medal, digital security, Documentary film, Glenn Greenwald, human rights award, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyer, International League for Human Rights, journalists, Laura Poitras, mass surveillance, right to privacy, Snowden, Wolfgang Kaleck
