Noelyn Nassuuna in KFM of 30 April 2021 reports that Ugandan women’s rights activist Rita Aciro is the winner of the 2021 European Union Human Rights Defenders’ Award.
The award is given annually by the European Union and Norway to recognise a human rights defender in Uganda for their outstanding contribution.
Speaking during the award ceremony last evening, the Germany Ambassador to Uganda Matthias Schauer said human rights need to be defended all over the world especially for disadvantaged groups.
While receiving the award, Aciro said it was an honour of the invisible Human Rights Defenders in homes, and public spaces who never have the spot light yet do an incredible job in giving a voice to women and girls.
On 12 March 2021 the NGO ‘Chinese Human Rights Defenders‘ announced that human rights defenders Li Yufeng and Li Qiaochu are recipients of the seventh Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders. The decision to give this year’s award to both Ms. Li Yufeng and Ms. Li Qiaochu recognizes their long-standing civil society activism to promote protection of human rights in China. Both recipients are currently detained in China for their human rights activism.
Cao Shunli died on March 14, 2014, after police denied her adequate medical treatment. Police detained Cao Shunli to prevent her from attending a session of the UN Human Rights Council and an international human rights training in Geneva. Last year on the fifth anniversary of Cao Shunli’s death, several UN independent human rights experts renewed their call for an independent investigation. In calling for justice for Cao, the experts said, “Cao Shunli’s case is emblematic of the struggle that many human rights defenders in China face.” Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly underlined China’s efforts to “safeguard the international system with the UN at its core” and yet the tragic death of Cao Shunli highlights the extraordinary lengths the Chinese government has gone into to stop its own citizens from freely cooperating with the UN human rights operations.
Meet the honorees
Li Yufeng, 63, human rights defender, is currently detained by the Chinese government for her rights advocacy. Li began petitioning in the early 2000s, seeking legal accountability for the forced eviction and demolition of her home by government backed developers. The obstacles she encountered and the punishments she experienced over the years led her to join and support actions with other victims and activists to seek justice. Li actively campaigned for the abolition of “re-education through labor”, a now-defunct system of administrative detention. Li has annually memorialized the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.
Li Yufeng was seized by police in October 2015 and criminally detained on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order of a public place” and subsequently arrested in a clear act of reprisal for her human rights advocacy work. Li was tried in closed-door proceedings and sentenced to 4-year in January 2017. Li was released in February 2019. But soon after, in July 2019, police detained Li again at Jiaozuo Detention Center in Henan Province to punish her for carrying on rights advocacy.
Li Qiaochu, 30, has long been a human rights advocate against gender-based violence, an advocate for labour rights, and for the building of civil society more broadly. Ms. Li graduated from Renmin University, and earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of York in England in 2015. She went back to China to work as a research assistant at Tsinghua University.
Li Qiaochu is currently detained at the Linyi City Detention Center in Shandong, after police took her into custody on February 6, 2021. Li Qiaochu had posted many tweets to expose details of torture of detained legal advocate Xu Zhiyong and lawyer Ding Jiaxi. Li Qiaochu is likely targeted in retaliation for her engagement with UN human rights mechanisms.
In 2017, Li Qiaochu volunteered to provide information and resources to affected migrant workers when Beijing authorities forcibly removed them from the city. Li increased visibility of China’s #MeToo movement by compiling data on sexual harassment, garnered greater publicity to combat the exploitative “966” work culture. Li sought to support family members of China’s detained and persecuted prisoners of conscience by speaking out publicly about their plight. When COVID-19 broke out, she participated in online efforts to provide much-needed PPE to sanitation workers in Beijing. On 31 December 2019, Li was summoned by police, and she was subsequently held incommunicado from 16 February 2020 to 19 June 2020.
Nasra Bishumba published in the New Times of Rwanda on 10 December 2020 the story of Rwanda’s Divine Ingabire, the founder and executive director of I Matter, an organisation that seeks to end period poverty and menstrual shame, to become the first Rwandan to win the Human Rights Tulip award.
Rwanda’s Divine Ingabire, the founder and executive director of I Matter, an organisation that seeks to end period poverty and menstrual shame, has become the first Rwandan to win the Human Rights Tulip award. The award comes with €5,000 monetary funding that goes to the project.
The Human Rights Tulip was established by the government of the Netherlands in 2008. Since 2018, selected Dutch embassies have also issued a Human Rights Tulip to a local human rights defender.
At only 23, Ingabire founded I Matter to build and support a community of young and strong women after drawing experiences from a personal story growing up as an orphan and living in poverty.
Receiving the award, Ingabire said that she identified with the struggles of many girls and young women in Rwanda who fail to fully participate in society because of menstruation due their failure to afford the costly sanitary products, lack of enough reproductive health information, and social norms which fuel menstruation shame. “It is indeed a right for every girl and woman to have access to sanitary products as well as sexual reproductive health information. What a journey! This journey can be summarized in these words. Responsibility, acceptance, embracing change and respect for humanity,” she said.
She expressed her gratitude to those who have helped her on the journey to break the silence around menstruation. Ingabire is credited for being some of the organisations that persistently pushed for the removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) levied on sanitary pads, culminating into the legislation that was passed in 2019.
Interesting example of enhancing international awards at the local level: Several Dutch embassies have started to issue a local version of the Ministry’s international human rights award, the Tulip [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/award/D749DB0F-1B84-4BE1-938B-0230D4E22144]. Here the case of Georgia where the Ambassador, Maaike van Koldam, has awarded 3 Georgian media activists with a Human Rights Tulip prize
Established in 2008 by the Dutch government, the Human Rights Tulip is an annual award intending to support human rights defenders and help them learn from each other. Photo: The Embassy of Netherlands to Georgia.
The winner is Kamilla Mamedova, the founder of Radio Marneuli. The second prize went to Tsabunia Vartagava, an LGBTI and women’s rights activist from Georgia’s western region of Samegrelo, and Manana Qveliashvili, a journalist working on various human rights issues in the Adjara region.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the award ceremony took place virtually. The Tulip prize will remain with the ambassador for now, until she will be able to hand it over to the winner in person.
Other leaders to receive the award this year include Dolores Huerta, founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation and co-founder of United Farm Workers of America; Dan Schulman, president and chief executive officer of PayPal; and Dan Springer, chief executive officer of DocuSign.
“At a time when the courageous pursuit of equality and justice has become political and riddled with adversity, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights stands with these modern-day human rights defenders in their inspirational fight for progress,” the organization said in an announcement on Monday
Aimé Moninga was nominated for the Human Rights Defenders Award due to his work in support of male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and his leadership of Men of Hope, a survivors’ association. He has put this difficult and sensitive issue on the policy agenda in an unprecedented way, both on a national and international level, and he is developing a generation of survivors who are prepared to testify in public to their experiences. He was chosen as this year’s award winner from among 50 nominations received from members of the public in Uganda.
Only a few years ago, the problems faced by male victims of sexual violence were barely discussed, even in human rights circles. Being a refugee and a violence survivor himself, Aimé Moninga has managed to mobilise many other survivors to speak. His advocacy efforts have also yielded results. For example, the Ugandan Police Force training curricula now includes references to both female and male victims of sexual abuse and violence. He is also advocating for further legislative changes.
Responding to the announcement, Aimé Moninga said, “This prize is for me and all the survivors of sexual violence, a consideration and a recognition of our struggle against impunity.”
“Being an activist is not easy but being a refugee human rights activist in an area of rights that sometimes is not even recognised or acknowledged is indeed the sharp end of activism”, said Mr. Per Lindgärde, the Ambassador of Sweden to Uganda speaking at today’s award ceremony in Kampala.
Mr Attilio Pacifici, Ambassador of the European Union to Uganda also spoke at this morning’s award ceremony. “Human rights are not advanced by themselves, it takes the courage and dedication of women and men, organisations and institutions to advance this agenda and ensure that rights become a lived reality for everyone in society”.
The Human Rights Defenders Award is presented every year by the European Union and Norway to recognise an outstanding contribution by a human rights defender active in Uganda. This year’s award, which is in its 9th year, is also given in memory of the late Hon. Med Kaggwa [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/11/24/ugandan-human-rights-commissioner-med-kaggwa-dies/].
On 28 May 2020 Gaea Katreena Cabico (Philstar.com) reported that Amnesty International Philippines has recognized the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and Br. Armin Luistro for exposing inequalities and standing up for the vulnerable sectors of the society.
PCIJ—an independent, non-profit media agency—was named as the Ignite Awards’ most distinguished human rights defender in the group category. It produced investigative reports on President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, election spending of senatorial candidates, the government’s brutal drug war, the country’s congested jails, among others.
Luistro was conferred the most distinguished human rights defender in the individuals category. Aside from PCIJ and Luistro, Lorenzo Miguel Relente and Michael David Tan were the recipients of Young Outstanding Human Rights Defender and Art that Matters for Literature, respectively.
“This season’s recipients come from varying rights backgrounds, from press freedom and right to education to gender equality and SOGIESC rights but they share one dedication, that is to the fight for basic rights of Filipinos,” Butch Olano, Amnesty International Philippines section director, said.
Awardees with organisers and guests at the event. Manusher Jonno Foundation organised the programme yesterday to recognise individuals working tirelessly to protect human rights and establish justice. Photo: Star
The BangladeshManusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) honoured 10 individuals who worked silently for protecting human rights, such as preventing child marriage and violence against women and marginalised communities, at different parts of the country. The organisation handed over the awards titled “Manusher Jonno Human Rights Awards 2020” at a ceremony in Dhaka.
The awardees are: Beli Begum of Gaibandha; Rehana Begum and Maloti Rani of Dinajpur; Saleha Begum, Halima Khatun and Nurjahan Begum of Kushtia; Khairuzzaman Monnu of Sirajganj; Anowara Begum of Kishoreganj; Hedayetul Aziz of Brahmanbaria and Chanchal Kanti Chakma of Khagrachhari. Rights activists urged the government to give more emphasis on protecting rights and ensuring justice for poor and marginalised communities. They also demanded more budget allocation in this sector, according to a press release.
About the awardees, MJF Executive Director Shaheen Anam said these 10 individuals stood up for what is right. “They are working selflessly without any concern for recognition or rewards to build a just and humane society,” she and announced tshe will continue efforts to honour such unsung heroes. [for a previous event: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/01/28/young-human-rights-defenders-honored-by-awards-in-bangladesh/]
Judith Herbertson, country representative of DFID Bangladesh, said the struggle to protect, promote and strengthen human rights is real and constant. “Where human rights are not adequately protected, there follows a cycle of insecurity, instability, suffering, and poverty. Human rights are more than just principles enshrined in international law. They are the bedrock of successful and progressive societies,” she said.
After the award-giving ceremony, several discussions on various topics — including global context of human rights and inclusion of marginalised people in national politics — were held. Distinguished personalities, researchers, NGO officials, politicians and several hundred rights activists from across the country took part in the discussions, added the press release.
Rabbi Moshe David Hacohen and Imam Salahuddin Barakat from Amanah are awarded Malmo’s City Prize on December 19, 2019. (photo credit: MUBARIK ABDIRAHMAN)
The Swedish city of Malmö has bestowed its Human Rights Award on a rabbi and an imam who have been working together to bridge the gap between the city’s large Muslim population, the Jewish community and the general society. Rosella Tercatin reports on 25 December in the Jerusalem Post that Rabbi Moshe David Hacohen and Imam Salahuddin Barakat established Amanah (“The Jewish-Muslim Faith and Trust Project”) in 2017. Since then, they have been working together relentlessly organizing joint projects as well as touring Malmö’s schools and addressing the students.
Malmö, where about a third of the 300,000 residents is Muslim, is considered one of the most problematic cities in Europe for lack of integration. About 1,200 Jews live in the city. Working against discrimination and racism, specifically antisemitism and Islamophobia, is one of the organization goals. The rabbi and the imam were awarded the prize, that entails funding $5,300 by the mayor of Malmö Katrin Jammeh Stjernfeldt in a ceremony that took place on Thursday 19 December.
The Defenders’ Coalition and HRD Working Group in Kenya announced the winners of the Human Rights Defender of the Year 2019. The awards are a local initiative to honour, promote and protect the work of HRDs in the Kenya.
Wilfred Olal and the Social Justice Working Group are the winners of the Human Rights Defender of the Year 2019. Wilfred is the coordinator of the Dandora Community Justice Centre and Convener of the Social Justice Centres Working Group. He began his work in human rights in 2005 when he joined The Bunge la Mwananchi social movement. He started as a member then rose to the position of national coordinator. The movement is an advocacy for the expansion of civic space and a campaign on the right to protest against corruption and impunity. In 2014, Wilfred and other HRDs decided to set up social justice centres to advocate for social justice and human rights in informal settlements of Nairobi. He started the Social Justice Centres Working Group (SJCWG) in Mathare, then later Dandora. SJCWG advocates and fights for the promotion of human rights in all spheres through documentation, monitoring, reporting of cases of human rights violations and holding community dialogues within their areas of advocacy. Today, SJCWG is a consortium of 28 social justice centers mainly based in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa’s informal settlements.
Benazir Mohammed and the Intersex Persons Society of Kenya won Upcoming Human Rights Defender of the Year while Denis Nzioka, Peninah Mwangi and the late Onyango Oloo won the Munir Mazrui Lifetime Achievement Award. The Human Rights Defenders Awards ceremony was hosted by the French Embassy in Nairobi, with the support from the Belgian, Dutch, German and Swedish Embassies and Haki Africa – a national human rights NGO based in Mombasa, Kenya.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 