Himself a survivor of the harsh journey across the Mediterranean Sea, Moses Von Kallon SOS Méditerranée’s Aquarius vessel in 2018 – a journey during which his rescue ship was turned away from Italian and Maltese waters. He told ISHR about how he started his organisation after Aquarius Supervivientes after settling in Spain and how he has wrestled with everyday racism. ‘Immigration is not a disease,’ he said, as he shared his hopes for a future where justice and free movement would be guaranteed to those who are forced to leave their homelands to find safety. Learn more about Moses and other human rights activists and defenders like him: https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/
Meet the winners of the Kids 4 Human Rights International Art Contest, an initiative of the Queen Sofia Children’s Art Museum of the Gabarrón Foundation, in collaboration with UN Human Rights, to raise awareness of the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Rafto Prize 2023 was awarded to Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) for their persistent work to defend and promote the rights of children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/09/21/defense-for-children-palestine-winner-of-the-2023-rafto-prize/]. For over 30 years, DCIP has investigated, documented and pursued accountability for grave human rights violations against children; held Israeli and Palestinian authorities accountable to universal human rights principles; and advocated at the international and national levels to advance access to justice and protection for children.
Cyrine Hammemi is a human rights defender and a project manager at the Association for the Promotion of the Right to Difference (ADD) in Tunisia. Her work focuses on the human rights of persons belonging to minority groups, through alerts on discriminatory situations and the violence they suffered.
Speaking to ISHR, Cyrine discussed her journey into activism and her vision for an inclusive future. She shared the personal triggers that led her to become an activist and emphasised her hopes for a world where every individual can fully enjoy their rights without discrimination based on identity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
The World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkmenistan one of the five most repressive regimes globally in 2023. Martin Ennals Award Finalist Soltan Achilova is a 74 years-old photojournalist who captures the lives of ordinary people in Turkmenistan with her camera. Soltan’s pictures describing food insecurity, forced and illegal evictions, lack of adequate healthcare and the discrimination faced by people with disabilities, are an invaluable source of information on human rights violations endured by the people of Turkmenistan. In collaboration with the University of Geneva Human Rights Week this event will explore how independent journalism can push back on the denial of freedom of expression in the toughest authoritarian contexts.
In their series “Activists Up Close” the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) focuses on Samreen, who grew up in Lucknow, India, in a household where her mother wasn’t allowed to do anything without her father’s permission. But when her father passed away, Samreen began to question the patriarchal norms that ruled her family. When she connected with AJWS partner Sadbhavna Trust, her world opened entirely.
Sadbhavna Trust runs leadership workshops and job training for women and girls in Lucknow, creating a world in which early marriage is not their only option. Today, Samreen is one of the organization’s leaders, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps.
For the Hollywood Reporter, Eliza Whitfield on 19 August 2023 gives the result of the Sarajevo Film Festival 2023:
……Macedonian filmmaker Kumjana Novakova won the human rights award, given to the film in the Sarajevo competition that best addresses human rights issues, for her documentary Silence of Reason, which used the archives of the international court of human rights in the Hague to explore how violence against women was used as a weapon of war in the Bosnian War.
Nvoakova took part in the public discussion held in Sarajevo on Thursday into the artistic and media representations of violence against women. The discussion was held on a day of national mourning across Bosnia and Herzegovina called in response to a shocking triple-murder suicide in the northeastern Bosnian town of Gradacac last week, in which a man live-streamed the murder of his ex-wife. The Sarajevo festival suspended its regular programming, with the public discussion as the only event of the day.
As part of the festival, a public discussion was held in Sarajevo to examine the artistic and media representations of violence against women. The discussion took place on a day of national mourning in response to a tragic triple-murder suicide in the town of Gradacac. The Sarajevo festival suspended its regular programming to prioritize this important conversation.
Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, shows on her LinkedIn page young human rights defenders who are the ones who will carry the human rights movement into the future, and to who we need to listen now.
👉 e.g. meet Zeinab, a young WHRD from #Kenya who took part in the 2023 Vienna Youth & Children HRD conference:
Camila Zuluaga is an international advocacy lawyer at the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ). She spoke to ISHR about her hopes for Colombia, which she hopes to make a safer country for human rights defenders. Camila was also one of the participants to ISHR’s flagship training course, the Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme (HRDAP).
Mariana de la Fuente, is a human rights defender who fights against slave labour and human trafficking in Brazil. According to ILO, more than 57,000 workers in Brazil were rescued in conditions similar to slavery – between 2003 to 2021.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 