In 2024, the Martin Ennals Foundation celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Martin Ennals Award, a prestigious distinction awarded to the most outstanding human rights defenders by a Jury composed of ten leading organisations of the human rights movement.
The Award was created in 1994 to recognize, promote and protect human rights defenders at risk or from under-reported contexts. It culminates every year in a public ceremony in Geneva, co-hosted with the City of Geneva. Over the years, the Award has offered defenders a platform to issues that are of global concern and the connections to steer the movement for human rights and larger freedoms.
The Jury has recognized 55 defenders in the past 30 years, from 38 countries and from all walks of life: lawyers, journalists, academics, medical practitioners, religious practitioners, housewives, students and grassroots activists. Their voices have illustrated some of the most important human rights demands of the past decades: free and fair justice for violations committed by security forces; access to information and freedom of expression to denounce repressive practices and authorities; the fight against gender discrimination and the importance of women’s full and equal participation in society; the essential role of civil society in conflict and post conflict resolution; the role of businesses in exploiting natural resources against the rights to land of indigenous people; or the role of global powers in the violations of the right to life of migrants.
The 2024 Martin Ennals Award continued this legacy and honoured two outstanding human rights defenders who have made it their life mission to protect human rights in their communities and countries despite evolving in deeply repressive environments.
Following the ceremony, a public discussion with Jury members was the opportunity to showcase the issues that will shape the future of the Award.
Zholia Parsi: is a teacher from Kabul, Afghanistan. Having lost her career and seeing her daughters deprived of their education with Taliban takeover in August 2021, she founded the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women (SMAW) to protest the return of policies and practices against women rights and fundamental freedoms. She displayed remarkable leadership and resilience in organizing numerous public protests despite the risks involved. The grassroots movement that is the SMAW quickly grew momentum in Kabul and other provinces, now counting 180 members and having mobilized communities to resist the Taliban’s policies and practices.
She was arrested in the street by armed Taliban in September 2023, and detained along with her son. She was released after three months of torture and ill-treatment under their custody, which further strengthened her resolve to resist Taliban oppression and repression.
Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov: is a Pamiri human rights lawyer from the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), Tajikistan. He is serving a 16 year-long prison sentence after what is widely considered an unfair trial in retaliation for his human rights work.
As Director of the Lawyers’ Association of Pamir (LAP), he led strategic advocacy efforts in the GBAO, a region marked by its ethnic minority and historical tensions with the central government, including by lobbying for the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law and practice, and by providing legal support to residents of the GBAO.
Through the human rights initiatives Commission 44 and Group 6, he played a key role in investigating the death of youth leader Gulbiddin Ziyobekov in November 2021, and the violent repression of subsequent mass protest in the regional capital Khorog. The investigation resulted in critical evidence of an unlawful killing, possibly an extrajudicial execution of the young man, and the unlawful use of force of security forces against protesters, resulting in two deaths, seventeen injured and hundreds detained.
He was arrested on 28 May 2022 together with two other members of Commission 44 amid a widespread crackdown on local informal leadership and residents of the GBAO.
Get to know the 2024 Laureates by watching our traditional Award ceremony which took place on Thursday 21 November at 18:30 CET, in Salle communale de Plainpalais, Rue de Carouge 52, Geneva.
Festivities continued on Thursday 21 November with a late-night discussion to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Martin Ennals Award. Since 1994, it is the careful deliberations of the Jury that have led to the recognition of some of the most outstanding human rights defenders and organisations. The Foundation is pleased to offer a special opportunity to listen in the inner thoughts of leading organisations on the state of human rights in the world and how to reclaim them.
The one-hour discussion was the occasion for a young human rights defender from the Solomon Islands, Laureate of the Young Activists Summit 2024, to ask everyone’s most burning questions.
Every year, Jury members go through a careful and difficult process to identify the name of the Laureate of the year. The high quality of the applications received in 2024 notably pushed the Jury to distinguish not only two Laureates, but also to recognize some of the most outstanding candidates it considered.
As such, the Foundation is launching the 2024 festivities with a series of portraits of these outstanding human rights defenders, check them out!
With the experience of a previous Martin Ennals Laureate specialized in detention and the migration context, the Foundation wishes to take a moment of the 30th anniversary festivities to shed light on the routine violation of migrants’ rights and continued protection gaps. Already among the most affected, human rights defenders who are on the move, displaced or exiled face additional repercussions for their legitimate activities and for speaking up against the limits of democracy.
The event showcased collected video testimonies from outstanding candidates of the 2024 nomination process to bring a vivid image of migration today and discuss avenues for improvement.
The event took place on Wednesday 13 November at 18:30 CET, as part of the human rights week organized by the University of Geneva under the thematic “The uncertainties of democracy.” The recording can be viewed here.
