share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
This is Human Rights Defender Saja Michael from Lebanon who works on gender issues. This is another of the profiles recently published by European External Action Service (EEAS) in the context of the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/10/04/chia-wei-chi-first-in-series-of-videos-by-european-external-action-service/].
![Quynh, one of Vietnam's most prominent dissidents, was serving a 10-year-sentence for anti-state propaganda [AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/10/17/c9052b243211403eae85961057714cab_18.jpg "Dissident Vietnamese blogger 'Mother Mushroom' released")
Vietnam has released dissident blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as “Mother Mushroom“. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/07/06/the-kind-of-blogging-that-got-mother-mushroom-10-years-imprisonment-in-vietnam/]. Quynh, 39, was freed from jail and put on a plane to the United States where her mother and children live. She boarded a flight to Houston around noon Wednesday 17 October 2018, said Martin Gemzell, Asia program director for Civil Rights Defenders, a group based in Sweden.
Quynh, one of Vietnam’s most well-known activists, whose recognisable pen name “Me Nam” comes from her daughter’s nickname “mushroom”, was jailed in June 2017. She is an outspoken critic of Vietnam’s one-party state and gained notoriety with her writing about the environment, politics and deaths in police custody. Quynh came to prominence when she received the Civil Rights Defender of the Year award in 2015 and also the (USA) International Woman of Courage Award in 2017.
“The overly broad, ill-defined scope of this law makes it all too easy to quash any kind of dissenting views and to arbitrarily detain individuals who dare to criticize government policies,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in 2016.
While the Vietnamese authorities have not given a reason for the release of Quynh, it coincided with a visit to Vietnam by US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis. Quynh is the second Vietnamese dissident released this year. A prominent human rights lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai, was released from prison in June and went to Germany.
https://www.wral.com/mother-mushroom-vietnamese-activist-is-said-to-be-released/17922631/
In December 2017, a video was released of Ahed slapping a soldier in the front yard of her house just hours after her cousin had been shot in the head and put in critical condition by Israeli soldiers who fired at him during a non-violent demonstration. The next day, Ahed and her mother were pulled from their beds in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, separated, and imprisoned. Ahed was imprisoned for eight months, and released in July 2018.
17-year old Ahed was greeted by former striker Emilio Butragueno, who presented the teenager with a personalised football jersey. The jersey had ‘Ahed’ printed across the back, and the number 9, which is commonly assigned to strikers who take the front lines of the field and score most of the goals.
(In 2012, her father Bassem Tamimi, was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International)
In response to the honor by Real Madrid, Emmanuel Nahshon, the Israeli foreign minister spokesman, tweeted in Spanish, “A shame! Real Madrid receives a terrorist who incites hatred and violence. What has that to do with the values of the football?!?!”
Spanish Football Team ‘Real Madrid’ Honors Teenaged Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi
On 21 September 2018 the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH/ OMCT) petitioned the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) to seek the release of Iranian human rights lawyer Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh. Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent defender and 2012 laureate of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, was arrested on June 13, 2018 at her home in Tehran. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/08/30/human-rights-defender-nasrin-sotoudeh-on-hunger-strike-in-iran/ ].. On September 16, 2018, Ms. Sotoudeh was informed that she would be denied her family visitation rights if she and her female visitors – including her daughter – did not wear a full hijab. Ms Sotoudeh has refused the condition and was denied the right to see her daughter on September 17, 2018.The semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Thursday 27 September that another human rights defender, Narges Mohammadi, has been granted a three-day leave from prison to visit her ailing father.
However, the recent terror attack in Iran may be expected to prompt the Guards to compensate by cracking down on domestic detractors and perceived opponents of their mission of defending and principles of the Islamic revolution. Certainly, some prominent figures within the Iranian activist and expatriate communities have been quick to raise alarms about the likelihood of this outcome. For instance, the Center for Human Rights in Iran quoted the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi as saying of last Saturday’s attack, “Such actions lead to the justification of state violence and the arrest of many opponents in the name of fighting terrorism.” Meanwhile activists echoed the sentiment, saying, “Terrorism and violence in any form should be condemned in the strongest terms [but] such acts of violence should not become an excuse for state violence to suppress peaceful opposition.”
One of the most admirable human rights defenders in the world, Iranian Nasrin Sotoudeh, has gone on hunger strike, Front Line Defenders reports on 25 August 2018. This time in protest against her judicial harassment and the continuing pressure which is being exerted on her family, relatives and friends. The defender was arrested in June and has been in the women’s ward of Evin Prison since.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights defender and lawyer who in recent months has represented a number of women’s rights defenders who have faced charges as a result of their protests against compulsory veiling in Iran. The defender has also actively criticised the new limit which has been imposed by the Iranian judicial system on the number of state-approved lawyers which are permitted to defend political and security based cases. [see https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/nasrin-sotoudeh and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/06/16/iranian-human-rights-lawyer-nasrin-sotoudeh-arrested-again/]
On 25 August 2018, human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh began a hunger strike in protest against her judicial harassment and the continuing pressure which is being exerted on her family, relatives and friends. The next day, the Assistant Prosecutor and two other judicial authorities filed three new charges against her for “urging a referendum,” “assisting in the formation of house churches” and “organising protest rallies”. The human rights defender believes that these charges have been filed as a result of her failure to attend a court hearing on 15 August 2018, when she was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for “propaganda against the state”, “assembly against national security” and “espionage”. The defender has lodged an appeal against these convictions. On 18 August 2018, at approximately 8 a.m., three agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, holding a warrant from Branch 7 of the Revolutionary Court in Evin Prison, raided Nasrin Sotoudeh’s house while her children were asleep. The agents also raided the house of her sister-in-law. It is believed that the agents were searching for objects related to the defender’s human rights work, such as badges reading “I oppose the compulsory Hijab”.
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https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/nasrin-sotoudeh-arrested
On Saturday, 28 July 2018 Liberal International has given its ‘Prize for Freedom’ (as announced a year ago) to detained Senator Leila de Lima. Her son Israel and other members of her family receive the award on her behalf. “Human rights are for all, or they are for nothing. The world is indeed watching, and Leila de Lima’s unjust detention will not be forgotten…. Senator Leila de Lima, you have received this prize for speaking truth to power,” Liberal International (LI) president Juli Minoves said during ceremonies held at the Novotel hotel in Quezon City on Saturday night. Minoves said this is the first time in almost a decade that the Prize for Freedom is being awarded outside of Europe. Fo more on this award and some 20 others with the word ‘freedom” in their name, see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/prize-for-freedom-liberal-intl
On Saturday, De Lima’s brother read her speech on her behalf: “I am extremely and unconditionally blessed, so much so that there is no room in my heart for regrets or second thoughts. No room for could haves, would haves, or should haves. I am where I am because I did the right thing.” Later in her speech, De Lima said that while dictators, oppressors, and abusers come and go, “we, the defenders of the people, can never rest.”
In May Amnesty International (AI) Philippines, had recognized the detained Senator as the “Most Distinguished Human Rights Defender” on its first-ever Ignite Awards for Human Rights. Time Magazine listed her as one of its 100 Most Influential People and Foreign Policy. Fortune Magazine in April 2017 ranked her as the 39th out of 50 of the World’s Greatest Leaders.
Felicia Langer (born 9 December 1930 ) died on 21 June 2018. She was a German-Israeli attorney and human rights defender known for her defence of Palestinian political prisoners in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She authored several books alleging human rights violations on the part of Israeli authorities. She lived in Germany from 1990 and acquired German citizenship in 2008.In her writings, lectures and interviews she criticized the Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, which she considered equivalent to an annexation. Langer furthermore considered the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as undermining the possibility of a two-state solution and demands the complete and unconditional retreat of Israel from the territories conquered in 1967 and a right to return for any descendant of the Palestinian refugees. In 1990, Langer received the Right Livelihood Award ” for the exemplary courage of her struggle for the basic rights of the Palestinian people.” In 1991, she was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Award. In July 2009, President of Germany awarded her the Federal Cross of Merit. The bestowal triggered a public controversy because of her attitude towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For more on human rights awards see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/Ludwig Watzal on 23 June wrote in an Op ED in EurAsia Review “Felicia Langer is highly respected and revered by the Palestinians like no other Israeli-German citizen. Only Yasser Arafat is more adored. Both the Palestinian Authority and the city of Tübingen, where she lived in exile, should set up a memorial place for this great German-Israeli woman…Felicia Langer is one of the few outstanding Israeli-German personalities who have sacrificed themselves to the legitimate concerns of the Palestinian people to the last breath, and whose memory should remember by all three peoples. Their tireless commitment to Palestinian justice and human rights should always be considered an inspiration and a societal obligation to their political actions.”
On 13 June 2018, Nasrin Sotoudeh, the human rights defender was arrested at her home in Tehran, Iran. She was transferred to prosecutor’s office of Evin prison. Nasrin Sotoudeh https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/nasrin-sotoudeh is a prominent human rights lawyer who in recent months has acted as the lawyer for women’s rights activists who protested against the compulsory veiling in Iran and were subsequently prosecuted. According to her husband, Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh was informed that she will be imprisoned for five years, however neither of them are aware of the charges against her.
In 2010, Nasrin Sotoudeh was given a prison sentence of eleven years and banned from working as a lawyer or leaving the country for twenty years. Nasrin Sotoudeh remained in prison for three years under charges of ‘spreading propaganda’ and ‘conspiring to harm state security’, designed to force her to stop her legitimate and peaceful human rights activities. Nasrin Sotoudeh was finally released in September 2013 after receiving a pardon. Prior to her detention, Nasrin Sotoudeh represented many human rights defenders opposed to the current regime in Iran, and worked extensively with young prisoners who had been sentenced to death for crimes they committed when they were under 18. In 2012 she won the EU’s Sakharov award {http://thedigestapp.trueheroesfilms.org/publicpage#/awards/BDE3E41A-8706-42F1-A6C5-ECBBC4CDB449/Sakharov-Prize-for-Freedom-of-Thought]
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https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-re-arrests-human-rights-lawyer-rights-groups-outraged/4438948.html
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 