Posts Tagged ‘Martin Ennals’

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Egyptian HRD and MEA Nominee, Mona Seif, under attack

May 3, 2013

As readers of this blog know I would have readily reported on any developments surrounding the MEA especially since the Final Nominees 2013 were announced recently. A few days ago a controversy arose around the nomination of Mona Seif, the courageous Egyptian human rights defender who was selected because of her campaign against military trials for civilians. UN Watch, an NGO affiliated to the American Jewish Committee,  and famous for its strident monitoring of anything that smacks of  criticism of Israel, accused Mona Seif of being a terrorist sympathizer on the basis of 3 older tweets in which she strongly defended the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation. The organisation started a twitter campaign to have Mona recalled as nominee.

Mona Seif, Egypt - Final Nominee MEA 2013

Mona Seif, Egypt – Final Nominee MEA 2013

The problem is that I am – in a personal capacity – the Chair of the Jury which is composed of ten of the world’s leading human rights NGOs (see list http://www.martinennalsaward.org). I am a non-voting chair whose only role is to facilitate the process and I do not participate in the selection. The board of the Martin Ennals Foundation also has no role in the selection as the Statutes provide for a fully independent Jury. Only the NGOs on the Jury can vote on the recipient of the MEA. Still, I feel that my capacity of Chair of the Jury obliges me to show restraint in speaking out.

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Breaking News: Final Nominees Martin Ennals Award 2013 made public

April 24, 2013

The Martin Ennals Jury just announced today (at 11h00 local time) the three Final Nominees for the Martin Ennals Award 2013. The MEA is the main award of the whole human rights movement thanks to its international Jury composed of 10 well-known human rights organisations (see below). The aim of the award is to provide protective publicity.  The Final Nominees are:

Mona Seif, Egypt - Final Nominee MEA 2013

Mona Seif, Egypt – Final Nominee MEA 2013

Mona Seif, Egypt: Core founder of the ”No To Military Trials for Civilians”, a grassroots initiative which is trying to stop military trials for civilians. Since February 2011, Mona has brought together activists, lawyers, victims’ families,local stakeholders and started a nationwide movement against military trials.  As part of the recent crackdown on the freedom of speech in Egypt she has been charged along with other Human Rights activists. She noted that “International solidarity, and I mean people’s support not governments’, empowers us to continue our battle and stop military trials for civilians“.
JMG final nominee MEA 2013

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HURIDOCS exists 30 years: my interview now on line

November 30, 2012

HURIDOCS

Hans Thoolen talks about the excitement of founding HURIDOCS, why the human rights community nowadays resembles a church with too many priests (and too few believers) and what made Latin American human rights defenders embrace technology before everyone else. Looking back at decades of involvement in human rights work, he also sketches out his idea of a multimedia platform that gives human rights defenders the space to inspire others. 

What was the most exciting idea about founding HURIDOCS?
It started for me and the others at this conference in 1979 near Paris. During this conference we sensed there was space for better cooperation among NGOs, especially with new technology. Mind you: this was 1979, well before the internet, and information technology was hardly used. Our idea was to somewhere, somehow seek some level of agreement among NGOs – or at least to create the tools with which working together would be possible in the future.

in 1982 Quito with Jose Antonio Viera de Gallo from Chile

Hans Thoolen (second from right) at the Quito conference in Spring 1982, the most important conference before HURIDOCS was officially founded a few months later.

How did you move on from there?
That idea survived the meeting and there was some money left over from the Ford Foundation and that was used to have informal consultations. So for a few years, Martin Ennals, who had just stepped down as secretary-general of Amnesty International, Friederike Knabe, Laurie Wiseberg, Bjorn Stormorken and myself (working for the International Commission of Jurists) were the people who worked on the follow-up. We had meetings in London, Brussels, Oslo and Geneva and we were asking NGOs what they thought of the potential of information technology and testing out ideas on information exchange.

That slowly lead to the first big conference, in Quito, Ecuador, in 1982, partly because the Latinos had taken to the use of technology well before the West – in the NGO world, not in the business world, of course. This maybe was surprising, but when you thought about it, not that strange.

Why not? And how did this lead to the founding of HURIDOCS?

…….

………

and the rest you have to read yourself on:

http://www.huridocs.org/2012/11/we-were-breaking-new-ground/

 

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Venerable LUON SOVATH becomes MEA laureate 2012

October 2, 2012

 

 The international human rights movement announces the 2012 Martin Ennals Award winner, A Cambodian Monk working to prevent Forced Evictions

 The Jury of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA), met in Geneva today and selected the Venerable LUON Sovath as the 2012 Martin Ennals Award winner. The Prize winner was announced at a ceremony hosted by the City of Geneva at Victoria Hall.

 The Venerable Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk from Siem Reap, Cambodia witnessed his family and fellow villagers being forcibly evicted from their homes in 2009.  Since then he has been a strong advocate against forced evictions, which remove families from their homes, often violently and little or no compensation. Despite threats to his person, of arrest and disrobing, the Venerable Sovath, a non-violent Buddhist monk, uses videos, poems and songs to defend the right to housing. His advocacy touches powerful economic interests. The threats against the Venerable Sovath are very real.

Venerable Sovath was selected from among three final Nominees. Also nominated was Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian Lawyer serving a 6 year prison sentence in Iran for her Human Rights work . She is known particularly for her work on behalf of women and children’s rights, especially juveniles facing execution. The third nominee is the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, who report widely on human rights abuses in Bahrain. Many of their key staff are currently imprisoned for their work.

The New Chair of the Martin Ennals Foundation, Micheline Calmy-Rey, the former Swiss President and Foreign Minister said: “This year’s novel  format with three nominees made the Jury’s decision particularly difficult. As a Buddhist monk, Venerable Sovath has managed to raise wider attention to the issue of forced evictions in Cambodia”

 The main award of the human rights movement. The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) is a unique collaboration among ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations to give protection to human rights defenders worldwide.  The Jury is composed of the following NGOs: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, International Federation for Human Rights, World Organisation Against Torture, Front Line, International Commission of Jurists, German Diakonie, International Service for Human Rights and HURIDOCS.

 Previous laureates : Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera (2011) Muhannad Al-Hassani, Syria, Emad Baghi, Iran; Mutabar Tadjibaeva, Uzbekistan; Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, Burundi and Rajan Hoole-Kopalasingham Sritharan, Sri Lanka; Akbar Ganji, Iran and Arnold Tsunga, Zimbabwe; Aktham Naisse, Syria; Lida Yusupova, Russia; Alirio Uribe Muñoz, Colombia; Jacqueline Moudeina, Chad; Peace Brigades International; Immaculée Birhaheka, DR Congo; Natasha Kandic, Yugoslavia; Eyad El Sarraj, Palestine; Samuel Ruiz, Mexico; Clement Nwankwo, Nigeria; Asma Jahangir, Pakistan; Harry Wu, China.

 Patrons of the Martin Ennals Award: Asma Jahangir, Barbara Hendricks, José Ramos-Horta, Adama Dieng, Leandro Despouy, Louise Arbour, Robert Fulghum, Irene Khan, Theo van Boven and Werner Lottje†.

For further information,  visit www.martinennalsaward.org

EMBARGOED until 18:45 Central European (Geneva) Time 2 Oct 2012

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Ceremony of the Martin Ennals Award to follow on the internet (2 October, 18h00)

September 27, 2012

Every day all over the world, unsung heroes are risking their lives to call attention to injustice and to fight for human rights. On Tuesday October 2nd, one of them will honored with the Martin Ennals Award. The Martin Ennals Award  is chosen by a Jury of ten leading Human Rights organizations including: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and others (see www.martinennalsaward.org). Thus, this prize represents the expression of the whole Human Rights movement.

The winner will be selected from three nominees, who personalize wider issues in their home countries and allow these issues to be represented through individual cases:

  1. Venerable Sovath Luon: sometimes referred to as the “Multimedia Monk”. He challenges the widespread eviction of poor people from land they have long held but without title, often due to the destruction of records during the Khmer Rouge period.
  2. Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian Lawyer serving a 6 year prison sentence in Iran for “… the offences of “acting against the national security”, “propaganda against the regime” and “membership of Human Rights Defenders Centre” – an organisation presided over by the Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.
  3. Bahrain Center for Human Rights: Currently high on the world media agenda. Two of the main founders: Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and Nabeel Rajab are serving jail sentences. Zainab al-Khawaja was arrested for demonstrating against the government, while other members are regularly arrested and abused.

The ceremony is hosted by the City of Geneva in Victoria Hall. Short films commissioned by the Martin Ennals Foundation. Those who cannot attend in person may want to follow it on the internet (www.martinennalsaward.org) starting at 18h00 Geneva time.

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French-Yugoslavian filmmaker Stanojevic pays tribute to Martin Ennals with short film

November 6, 2011

Back in 1983 the Yugoslav-born filmmaker Stacha Stanojevic made a human rights film under the title ‘Illustres Inconnus’ (Notorious Nobodies as the English language version would be called much later). One of the personalities in this multi-story film is a human rights activist, the inspiration for whom came from Martin Ennals who had then just left his post as Secretary General of Amnesty International and met Stacha several times. Now the filmmaker has drawn from his full-length film a short version focusing on the international human rights defender for whom, unknowingly, Martin Ennals stood as model. The scenes are mostly shot in Geneva and have the feel of this diplomatic city in the early 80s. The end is a bit of a surprise but highlights the essential human element  in the unending quest for human rights. Unfortunately only in French for now, but english-speakers can still get the gist of it. See   http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlt5bv_indignation-revolte-1983_shortfilms?start=0#from=embed

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Mexican bishop and human rights defender Ruiz Garcia passes away

January 25, 2011

Bishop Samuel Ruiz García, MEA Laureate 1997, passed away on 24 January 2011 at the age of 86.
Adama Dieng, who was the Chair at that time and is now a Patron of the MEA, expressed the feelings of all, stating: “What a sad news! I remember my visit to Mexico to during which I had the honor and privilege to hand the MEA to Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia. He was a courageous Human Rights Defender whose contribution made a great impact in the daily life of so many peoples in Mexico and particularly in the Chiapas. May his soul rests in peace.”
The MEA has expressed condolences to the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas as well as to the colleagues from the Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolome de Las Casas.

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