Shortlist of nominees for the 2007 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Thursday April 12, 2007 12:40

by Clare Quinlan - Front Line - Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

12 April 2007

Front Line has confirmed a short list of nominees for the 2007 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. Bono will present the award during a ceremony in Dublin’s City Hall on 01 May 2007

Each year, Front Line awards a human rights defender who through their non-violent work has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of Human Rights in the face of considerable personal risk.

The objective of the award is to increase the human rights defenders protection by focusing international attention on their work and the cash prize contributes to the recipients work.

Among this year’s nominees is Tunisian, human rights lawyer, Radhia Nasraoui. On account of her work, she is routinely harassed by police, she has been physically attacked several times and her movements under constant state surveillance. Gégé Katana, the president of the Solidarity Movement of Women Human Rights Activists (SOFAD) from the Democratic Republic of Congo is also a nominee. SOFAD works through a grassroots network of 625 women to campaign against sexual violence. She has been arbitrarily arrested, banned from travelling for over four years and regularly receives death threats due to her human rights work. The other nominees include, Jackeline Rojas, the coordinator and legal representative for the Organisation Femenina Popular (OPF) in Colombia. She has been the victim of several death threats and survived an attempt on her life by paramilitaries in 2004. Her brother and political activist, Jose de Jesus Rojas Castaneda, was killed by paramilitaries in 2003. Akifa Aliyeva works with a branch of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, an organisation that promotes and protects women’s and environmental rights in Azerbaijan. She has been labelled ‘an enemy of the state’ due to her vocal criticism of the authorities. The final nominee is, Riza Fanilag, she works with the National Federation of Peasant Women in the Philippines. Since 2003, she has been on a watch list of persons targeted by the military. Persons on this list are frequently subjected to arrests, enforced disappearances or worst, summary execution.

Last years winner was Ahmadjan Madmarov, a human rights defender for 30 years in Uzbekistan on presenting the award, Peter Sutherland said: "The most terrible part of the persecution he is facing is that three of his sons and two nephews have been imprisoned and tortured because of his work for human rights."

For further details please contact:

Clare Quinlan,
Press Officer, Tel: 086 8334929 or 01 212 3750
Jim Loughran,
Head of Media and Communications, Tel: 087 9377586 or 01 212 3750
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Front Line,is the only international NGO that is exclusively dedicated to the support and protection of human rights defenders at risk. Since its creation in Dublin in 2001, Front Line has worked on behalf of more than 600 human rights defenders in over 100 countries, combining “round-the-clock” practical support with international advocacy and implementing a flexible and rapid response programme, which enables it to intervene in high-risk situations.