Freshta Karimi, 38, the founder of the Da Qanoon Ghushtonky (DQG) organisation, one of the largest suppliers of legal aid in Afghanistan, won the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize 2021, awarded by jurists to their peers.
Her organisation works in particular on upholding the rights of woman and children in Afghanistan and she has regularly represented it abroad in recent years.
Since the Taliban seized power last month however, she has kept a lower profile, lawyer Bertrand Favreau, the founder of the prize and chairman of its jury, told AFP.
“For at least five years, she has received threats from the Taliban in all the cities where she has tried to open an office to inform women of their rights,” he said.
That had not stopped her continuing her outreach work however, travelling to even the most remote villages, he added. “Today she is one of the most threatened lawyers in the world.”
The Ludovic Trarieux Award is an annual prize which recognises lawyers of any nationality who have sought to defend human rights, often at great risk to themselves. The award was named after Trarieux, who in 1898 founded France’s Human Rights League (LDH). For more on this and other awards for jurists, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/7C413DBA-E6F6-425A-AF9E-E49AE17D7921.
This year’s Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize has been granted to arrested lawyers Barkın Timtik and her sister lawyer Ebru Timtik, who lost her life on a death fast for a fair trial.
On 27 May 2019, the Jury of the 24th Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize chose the Colombian lawyer Rommel Durán Castellanos, President of the Equipo Jurídico Pueblos (EJP), as the recipient of the 2019 Prize. The Prize will be officially presented to Mr. Durán Castellanos on 8 November 8 at 5 p.m. at the Salle D of the European Convention Center Luxembourg – ECCL. For further information please contact: uiacentre@uianet.org.
Rommel Durán Castellanos, 33 years old, is a human rights lawyer and a the president of the ‘Pueblos’ Legal Team (Equipo Juridico Pueblos) and a volunteer with the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), in Bucaramanga, in the northern Cesar Department, as well as a member of the Santander branch of the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners. Since 2007, Rommel Durán has been defending marginalized communities and victims of human rights abuses and carrying out grassroots training workshops on human rights and protection mechanisms. In particular, he provides legal assistance to victims of violations in rural areas, where forcibly displaced small-scale producers are attempting to return to their lands, and victims of such crimes as enforced disappearance, torture and killings, perpetrated by State agents and paramilitary groups.
Rommel Durán faces very serious threats to his life due to his work as a lawyer and has first-hand experience of the violence that he seeks to challenge through his work. He is subject to harassment, including to a campaign of threats, attacks and stigmatization because of his work accompanying small-scale farming communities who are claiming the restitution of their lands under the Colombian Victims and Land Restitution Law.
In his work as a member of the ‘Pueblos’ Legal Team, Rommel Durán supports members of the Pitalito community who maintain that they have been forced, at gunpoint, to sell their land at unfairly low prices. Alongside the Directing Committee of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), Rommel Durán accompanied those members of the community who have returned to their lands and has provided them with legal advice and protection during the difficulties they have encountered since their return.
Apart from being stigmatized and falsely (criminally) accused, assumedly by those who have ‘purchased’ the land, the returning members of the community and their (legal) supporters, including Rommel Durán, have also been shot at by armed men during an incident in December 2013 while attempting to verify the state of the community’s crops.
On 9 August 2014, Rommel Durán was arrested in the village Curumaní and detained in poor conditions. The only information given by these policemen at the time was that there was a warrant for alleged conspiracy. However they did not state which judicial office issued the order. His cell phone was snatched from him; he was filmed and photographed illegally and was prevented from calling his own lawyer. He was released after being detained for 20 hours on 10 August. The issue of this certificate suggests that there is no intention holding to account those responsible for Rommel Durán’s arbitrary detention.
Radio Farda on 8 March 2019 reported that France’s President Macron has decided to invite jailed Iranian Human Rights Defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to the G7 Council. This is an excellent idea that deserves follow-up in other such forums. There are quite a few laureates of human rights awards who are in detention or subject to a travel ban. An invitation from a group of important world leaders is hard to ignore!
Imprisoned Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh adjusts her scarf at her house in Tehran, September 18, 2013
French President Emmanuel Macron has invited jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh to take part in the G7 gender equality forum. Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan told Radio Farda on Friday that Macron’s invitation has been given to him in Tehran on Thursday March 7, one day before the International Women’s Day.[see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/06/16/iranian-human-rights-lawyer-nasrin-sotoudeh-arrested-again/]
Ms. Sotoudeh is to be a member of the consultative council for gender equality in Group 7. Khandan said Iranian women should be proud of Soutoudeh’s membership in the G7 council. Copies of the invitation have been handed to the Iranian Foreign Ministry and Bar Association.
Nasrin Sotoudeh has been in Jail since June 2018 with a five-year imprisonment sentence and is facing more charges for defending human rights activists in Iran. She is an outspoken opponent of the death penalty and compulsory hijab. Sotoudeh, 55, is the winner of numerous international awards, including PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write (2011), Southern Illinois University School of Law Rule of Law Citation (2011) and Sakharov Prize (2012). On 21 September 2018, she was awarded the 23rd Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize.
Radio Free Europe on 1 August 2018 carried the good news that the prominent Kazakh Rights Defender will new granted parole after 6 years In prison. A lawyer for Vadim Kuramshin, Muratbek Irge, told RFE/RL that a court in the northeastern city of Oskemen agreed on August 1 to parole Kuramshin. He will be released in 15 days ifthe ruling is not appealed and overturned, Irge said. Kuramshin has become known for his efforts to raise awareness of violations of inmates’ rights in Kazakh penitentiaries, including the one where he served his term. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2012 on an extortion conviction. He denies wrongdoing. His supporters say were politically motivated.
In December 2013, while behind bars, Kuramshin was awarded the Ludovic-Trarieux international human rights prize.[see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/ludovic-trarieux-international-human-rights-prize]
Saturday, 27 May 2017 jailed UAE lawyer Mohammed al-Roken was announced as the winner of the Ludovic Trarieux Award. This award is given by the Luxembourg-instigated European Bar Human Rights Institute (IDHAE), and is named after Trarieux, who in 1898 founded France’s Human Rights League. The annual award, worth 20,000 euros, recognises lawyers who have sought to defend human rights, often at great risk to themselves. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/06/07/detained-chinese-lawyer-wang-yu-wins-ludovic-trarieux-prize/]
The Emirates lawyer was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2013. Mohammed al-Roken was among 69 people jailed on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government following a mass trial criticised by rights groups. A former head of the UAE Jurists’ Association, Roken, 54, was arrested in July 2012, after taking on the defence of several government opponents, including seven islamists. According to Amnesty the trial “was marred by allegations of torture which were blatantly ignored, the rights of defence were flaunted, and independent observers were banned from the court room“. For more on the Emirates and human rights: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/united-arab-emirates/
In awarding the Jury said Roken had devoted two decades to defending fundamental freedoms. The jury lamented that Roken’s trial had gone ahead behind closed doors and demanded his immediate release.
Waleed Abu al-Khair, a human rights defender from Saudi Arabia has won the 2015 Ludovic Trarieux Prize, a prestigious award for human rights lawyers [for more info on the award see: http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/ludovic-trarieux-international-human-rights-prize]. Waleed Abu al-Khair is a long-standing campaigner (started the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia – MHRSA) and was given a 15-year jail sentence by a Jeddah court last year, in a ruling that Human Rights Watch (HRW), Front Line and many others have heavily criticized [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/waleed-abu-al-khair/].
Bertrand Favreau, the founder of the Ludovic Trarieux Prize, told AFP the award goes to those who “through their work, activities or suffering defend the respect for human rights“.
Egypt’s Abdel Fattach El Sisi is due to meet German chancellor Wednesday 3 June
On the eve of the visit to Germany by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a number of leading international human rights organisations (AI, HRW, EMHRH, OMCT and Front Line) wrote an open letter to the German chancellor Ms Angela Merkel. It reads in essence: Read the rest of this entry »
While all attention is focused on the political power struggle in Turkey, human rights defenders there continue to be harassed and detained. A glaring example is the case of Muharrem Erbey who is in pre-trial detention since 4 years. On 13 January 2014, the trial against Muharrem Erbey, the recipient of the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize for 2012, will resume. On 24 December 2009, Mr. Muharrem Erbey was arrested by the Anti-Terror Unit of the Diyarbakır Security Directorate as part of an operation launched simultaneously in 11 provinces in Turkey. His arrest and detention Read the rest of this entry »
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 