2014 Martin Ennals Award ceremony

The City of Geneva, in partnership with the Martin Ennals Foundation, will host the 21st ceremony of the Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders.

This event is part of the Human Rights Week, organized from 7 to 9 October 2014 at the University of Geneva and focused on the rights of the child.

The Martin Ennals Award is given to Human Rights Defenders who have shown deep commitment and face great personal risk. Its aim is to highlight their work and protect them through increased visibility. Each year, the nominees are selected by a jury comprised of ten of the most important non-governmental human rights organisations, including International Service for Human Rights.

For this edition, Mr Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein, United Nations High-Commissioner for Human Rights, will hand out the award to one of the three nominees below :

Ms Cao Shunli (China) who lost her life on March 14th, 2014, had vigorously advocated since 2008 for access to information, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, encouraging strengthened domestic implementation of international mechanisms.

Mr Adilur Rahman Khan (Bangladesh) has worked since the 1990's on a wide range of humain rights issues, such as illegal detention, enforced disapearances, extra-judicial killing, and elections monitoring with his non-governmental organization, Odhikar.

Ms Alejandra Ancheita (Mexico) founder and Executive Director of ProDESC, has worked for more than 15 years with migrants, workers, and indigenous communities to protect their land and labour rights vis a vis transnational mining and energy companies.

For more information visit the website: http://www.martinennalsaward.org

Download the flyer here.