The Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders Emad(dedin) Baghi was released from jail only a month ago, but according to a new court ruling – issued 2 years after the trial related to Defending Prisoners’ Rights Society – he has been sentenced to 1 year imprisonment and 5 years prohibition from political, organizational, and media activities. Does the harassment ever stop?
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MEA Laureate 2009 Emad Baghi under threat again
August 6, 2010Now the lawyer of Syrian MEA Laureate Al-Hassani has also been sentenced to 3 years in prison
July 5, 2010Haitham Al-Maleh (78), the lawyer of Muhannad Al-Hassani, the Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award 2010, was sentenced by a military court in Damascus on Sunday to three years for “spreading false information” and “weakening national sentiments” – the same charged laid on Muhannad Al-Hassani.
It would seem that weakening the sentiments for this nation, can be safely left to the Syrian regime itself!
specialized search engine on human rights relaunched
July 5, 2010The NGO HURIDOCS announces the launch of a new, Open-Source version of HuriSearch (http://www.hurisearch.org) , its specialised search engine for human rights information. HuriSearch is an effective Internet search tool, very useful for human rights researchers and advocates, academic staff and students, journalists, diplomats and staff of international organisations. HuriSearch searches the content of over 5000 human rights websites, with a total of almost 7 million pages. This content is always fresh, because HuriSearch indexes the content of these websites very frequently. The source of information is crucially important in human rights work and HuriSearch makes it possible to focus searches on information published in a particular country, by a particular type of organisation, by a specific organisation, or in a specific language. Search results are based upon relevance of contents rather than website popularity – which makes the pages from smaller, specialized organisations more visible than on other search engines.
Feedback is appreciated but please send it directly to: search@huridocs.org
Laureate Martin Ennals Award 2010 announced today
May 7, 20103 hours ago in Geneva I had the honor to announce to the international media that the Jury of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) had selected the Syrian lawyer Muhannad Al-Hassani as its laureate for 2010. He lingers in jail since 28 July 2009 for having defended human rights and challenged the oppressive legal framework imposed by the Syrian government. He was charged with ‘crimes’ such as “weakening national sentiments,” and “spreading false news.”
A man of an exceptional courage, arbitrarily detained in unacceptable conditions for defending the rule of law deserves your support. See http://www.martinennalsaward.org
a new blog about Human Rights Defenders
March 12, 2010hansthoolen Says:
March 12, 2010 at 1:53 pm | Reply edit
A short introduction
There is nowadays so much happening around the theme of human rights defenders (shorthand HRDs) that on the one hand there is no need to have yet another source of information, while on the other I feel that I am in such a privileged position that not sharing some of the information that comes my way would be a disservice to the human rights movement. A worldwide movement that has been my ‘home’ for most of my life. It started with the anti-apartheid movement and the Netherlands Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (NJCM) in the 70s and via the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (SIM) and HURIDOCS, it ended with 15 years in the United Nations, mostly the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and one year at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). After early retirement and a move to Greece, there was more time to specialise in human rights defenders, through the MEA (Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders – http://www.martinennalsaward.org) and THF (True Heroes Foundation, films for HRDs – http://www.trueheroesfilms.org) and do teaching and traning, mostly through the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund. So, now you have some idea of my background and I can start thinking about more substantive matters for future blogs, best Hans Thoolen
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 