share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
Judi Aldalati is a Syrian journalist, a researcher and human rights defender. She told ISHR how seeing the early days of the Arab Spring led her to pursue the defence of human rights and shared her aspirations for the future of Syria amidst the uncertainty that has followed the collapse of the Assad regime.
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-judi-aldalati-from-syria
‘What we need first is peace. (…) The international community, the UN, has the ability to end what’s happening in eastern RDC – what is happening today in the East is truly alarming.’
Judith Maroy is a Congolese journalist and human rights defender from Bukavu, in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Judith began her advocacy work through LUCHA, a youth-led citizen movement demanding social justice, democratic governance, and equality. She later became a journalist with La Prunelle RDC and co-founded a local organisation advocating for the rights of women, youth, and Indigenous communities.
She is calling for a just, peaceful Congo where young people have opportunities, women’s voices are heard, and no one is displaced in their own country.
On 27 November 2024 ISHR shared this profile:
‘The Egyptian authorities must open the civic space for civil society to play its role. They must stop persecuting human rights defenders, political opponents, and journalists simply for doing their jobs. The UN and the international community must maintain pressure on them to comply with human rights standards.’
Basma Mostafa is an Egyptian investigative journalist and co-founder of the Law and Democracy Support Foundation. She began her journalism career amid the Egyptian revolution, focusing on sensitive issues such as torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings.
Basma’s commitment to exposing human rights violations in Egypt came at a high personal cost. Over the years, she faced numerous threats and severe reprisals for her work, including being detained three times, forcibly disappeared, and accused of ‘affiliation with a terrorist organisation’ and of ‘spreading false information’. Following a sustained campaign of intimidation, Basma was forced to leave Egypt in 2020.
What happened during the Egyptian revolution strengthened my commitment to the principles of human rights and to defending them.
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-basma-mostafa-from-egypt
Global CITIZENS FESTIVAL 2024
New York
Friends, New Yorkers, global citizens.
Human rights defenders are champions for our future – shining a light on repression, on injustice and on solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges.
In return, they are often smeared, intimidated, imprisoned, and worse.
According to data gathered by my Office, last year, 320 human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists in 40 countries were killed. Many of them while protecting nature and the environment.
Across the globe, environmental human rights defenders are leading efforts to tackle a climate crisis that is growing ever more ferocious, more terrifying, and more present.
They are standing up for the marginalized, for the natural world, and for the planet.
For the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
They deserve our gratitude and our protection.
My office is proud to support the Leaders Network for Environmental Activists and Defenders (LEAD), a new initiative focused on meaningful and safe participation of defenders in climate and environmental discussions.
But they need your support too. So I urge you to join my office.
Take action to protect civic space and help us to build a more sustainable and more equal future.
Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei is a human rights defender from Bahrain and the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD).
‘All we are asking for are the most basic rights. We hope to see Bahrain healing from over a decade of ordeal, of repression, of imprisonment, of torture, into a State where individuals can challenge their State without fear.’
He spoke to ISHR about how the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain led him into activism and shared his hopes for a free, democratic future for his country despite the regime’s efforts to silence him and all those it perceives as opponents.
Learn more about Sayed and other human rights defenders like him here: https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/
On 3 June 2024, ISHR published Human rights defender’s story: Elham Kohistani, from Afghanistan
Elham Kohistani is a human rights defender from Afghanistan. Having witnessed successive governments trample human rights in her country since her childhood, she has dedicated her life to fighting for the basic rights of women and girls.
In an interview with ISHR, Elham spoke about her hopes for the future of Afghanistan, urging the international community to continue supporting human rights defenders in the long term to achieve peace and prosperity.
Stand in solidarity with Elham and other women human rights defenders (WHRDs) from Afghanistan: join us in our campaign to push for UN experts and States to explicitly and publicly recognise the situation in Afghanistan as a form of gender apartheid and the need for an accountability mechanism to address gross human rights violations against women.
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-elham-kohistani-from-afghanistan
Sara Nabil is a human rights defender and artist from Afghanistan, forced into exile. She spoke to ISHR about her dream of one day seeing a ‘free democratic Afghanistan, where each human being [regardless of which] gender they are, man or woman, neutral or other genders, [would be] treated equally.’
‘Since the Taliban came to power, Afghanistan [has become] the only country where we see that women don’t have any kind of rights.’
Learn more about Sara and other human rights defenders like her: https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/
see also: https://www.dw.com/en/art-in-exile-afghan-sara-nabil-fights-for-womens-rights/a-61732508
Tala Odeh, a young human rights defender from Jordan, serves as a regional coordinator for the NAMA Network, immersing herself in the MENA region’s socio-political complexities. Her efforts to advocate for individual rights and address systemic issues highlight the critical need for resilience and adaptability.
ISHR has more of these profiles on https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-tala-odeh-from-jordan
More than 10 years ago, in May 2013, Damian Gallardo from Oaxaca, Mexico, was arbitrarily detained, disappeared, and tortured. He was eventually released but lodged a complaint with the UN Committee against Torture, who reviewed Gallardo’s case and adopted an unprecedented decision stating that, in fact, Gallardo had been tortured.
In a decision published on 14 December 2021 the UN anti-torture body found that Damián Gallardo Martínez, a teacher and campaigner for education and indigenous people’s rights, was a victim of torture in Mexico, in violation of Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The Committee also requested that Mexico provide Gallardo Martínez with full compensation, make a public apology to the complainants, and widely disseminate the Committee’s decision through a daily newspaper with a large circulation in the state of Oaxaca.
On 18 January 2024, UN Human Rights published the above video clip.
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-damian-gallardo-martinez
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/
https://ishr.ch/defender-stories/human-rights-defenders-story-moses-von-kallon-from-sierra-leone/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 