Front Line announces human rights award short list

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Wednesday May 10, 2006 10:46 by Jane Doran - Front Line

Front Line: The International Foundation for Human Rights Defenders is pleased to announce its shortlist for the 2006 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. Mr Peter Sutherland, United Nations Special Representative for Migration and former EU Commissioner will present the award on Friday 16 June at a breakfast ceremony in Dublin City Hall.
The four nominees on the shortlist are:

Soraya Gutierrez Arguello, Colombia
Soraya Gutierrez Arguello is a 38-year-old human rights lawyer who represents victims of human rights atrocities. She is president of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective; an NGO, which promotes human rights and fights impunity through legal work. She represented victims of gross human rights violations including massacres committed by the Colombian security forces or the government-linked Paramilitaries, such as the Alaska massacre where 24 people were killed. Soraya led a national campaign against the implementation of the ‘Justice and Peace law’: a controversial law, which grants impunity and financial rewards to paramilitaries who give up their arms. Colombia is one of the most dangerous environments in the world in which to defend human rights; in 2004 alone, more than 26 defence lawyers were assassinated. Soraya survived an assassination attempt in 2003 and she and her seven-year-old daughter have received numerous death threats – in May last year, a mutilated doll covered in red nail varnish was shoved through her letterbox. A note accompanied it saying ‘you have a lovely family – take care they are not sacrificed.’

Mohammed Abbou, Tunisia
Mohammed Abbou is a prominent human rights lawyer who is currently serving three and a half years in prison for publishing statements on the Internet that called attention to human rights abuses in the Tunisian prison system. The statements compared the torture and ill treatment suffered by Tunisian prisoners to that suffered by prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Mohammed is a member of the National Committee for Liberties in Tunisia– one of many national NGOs that the Tunisian government refuses to recognize – and a former Director of the Association of Young Lawyers. A vocal critic of corruption – he was one of the few lawyers in Tunisia willing to publicly comment and act on corruption allegations involving President Ben Ali’s family. He was imprisoned in April 2005, following a trial widely condemned as unfair and arbitrary by Tunisian and international NGOs and is incarcerated in El Kef prison, 170 km from his home and family in Tunis. From 11 March to 21 April, in order to draw attention to the inhuman and degrading conditions in which he is being held and the harassment faced by family members whilst visiting him, Mohammed went on his second hunger strike since his imprisonment. His incarceration is particularly indicative of the harshness with which Tunisia responds to its citizens exercising their right to freedom of speech and is part of an ongoing pattern of repression against human rights defenders in Tunisia.

Ahmadjan Madmarov, Uzbekistan
Ahmadjan Madmarov is a regional Chairman of the Independent Human Rights organisation of Uzbekistan (NOPCHU) – one of the few registered human rights organisations in Uzbekistan. For over thirty years, he has been condemning the gross human rights violations committed in Uzbekistan, such as police torture, arbitrary detention and lack of religious freedom. He has paid a high price for his work. Threats, restrictions of movement and surveillance have become an almost everyday occurrence for one of the few people in Uzbekistan who dares to speak up against the Karimov regime. In Uzbekistan, the authorities routinely target and persecute human rights defenders in the hope they will abandon their work. In the case of Ahmadjan, they have extended this to his family – three of his sons and two nephews are serving long prison sentences in inhumane conditions. Front Line believes that their incarceration is directly related to Ahmadijan's work as a human rights defender. The five men were convicted after grossly unfair trials for allegedly being members of the banned Islamic political organisation Hizb-Ut-Tahrir (a familiar tactic used by the Uzbek authorities). Uzbek officials allegedly told Ahmadjan “stop your human rights activity, and we will let your sons alone. We will stop torturing them. Maybe we will help them to be freed. “

Aini Abukar Ga’al, Somalia
Aini Abukar Ga’al is a human rights and Peace officer at the Coalition of Grassroots Women’s organisations (COGWO), an umbrella of women organizations, working for the social, political and economic empowerment of Somali women. Part of Aini’s work is to mediate between hostile clans and negotiate for peace with antagonistic militia leaders. She also documents human right violations that occurred during the chaotic period of the civil war focusing in particular on violations against women and children. Defending women’s rights in Somalia has twin difficulties – the difficulties and dangers of defending human rights in a country where for the last 15 years warlords, militias and rivalling clans have replaced a centralised government and the difficulties of defending women’s rights in a conservative, patriarchal society. During her 20 years as a human rights defender, Aini has endured death threats, arrests, restriction of her movements, interrogation and the assassination and kidnappings of her friends and colleagues. Once when she was nine months pregnant, armed men attacked her vehicle and she found herself forced to hide under a rock for hours. She eventually gave birth to a son, who was born with a broken shoulder, still in her hiding place under a rock.