The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy is an annual human rights summit sponsored by a coalition of 20 non-governmental organizations. [1] Each year, on the eve of the United Nations Human Rights Council's main annual session, activists from around the world meet to raise international awareness of human rights situations. [2] [3] [4]
The first summit took place on Sunday, April 19, 2009, prior to the United Nations Durban Review Conference. [5] Speakers included, among others, Iranian activist Nazanin Afshin Jam; [6] Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim; [6] American human rights activist Ellen Bork; [6] Gibreil Hamid of Darfur, Sudan; [6] Soe Aung of Burma; [6] Marlon Zakeyo of Zimbabwe; [6] Cuban opposition activist and former political prisoner José Gabriel Ramón Castillo; [6] and Venezuelan activist Gonzalo Himiob Santome. [6]
The 2010 summit took place on Monday, March 8, 2010. [7] Speakers included, among others, Massouda Jalal, former Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs; [8] exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer; [8] Bob Boorstin, Google's policy director; [9] Caspian Makan, fiancé of slain Iranian icon Neda Agha Soltan; [9] Cuban dissident José Gabriel Ramón Castillo; [9] and Bo Kyi of Burma, a former political prisoner and secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. [9]
The 2011 summit took place on Tuesday, March 15, 2011. [10] Speakers included, among others, Ugandan LGBT rights activist Jacqueline Kasha; [9] Cuban dissident Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia; [9] Guang-il Jung, a North Korean labor camp escapee; [9] Turkmenistani activist Farid Tukhbatullin; [9] North Korean activist Cheong Kwang Il; [11] and Libyan dissident Mohamed Eljahmi. [12]
The 2012 summit took place on Tuesday, March 13, 2012. [13] Speakers included, among others, Chinese dissidents Yang Jianli and Ren Wanding; [14] Cuban activist Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina; [14] Zimbabwean activist Jestina Mukoko; [14] Burmese activist Zoya Phan; [14] former Egyptian political prisoner Maikel Nabil; [14] North Korean defectors Joo-il Kim and Song Ju Kim; [14] Iranian activist Ebrahim Mehtari; [14] and Syrian activist Hadeel Kouki. [14]
The 2013 summit took place on Tuesday, February 19, 2013. [15] Speakers included, among others, Pakistani women's rights activist Mukhtar Mai; [16] Moroccan writer and atheist Kacem El Ghazzali; [17] Tibetan politician Dicki Chhoyang; [18] Syrian politician Randa Kassis; [18] former Cuban political prisoner Régis Iglesias; [18] Iranian dissident Marina Nemat; [19] Pyotr Verzilov, husband of jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova; [19] and Kazakh journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov. [19]
The 2014 summit took place on Tuesday, February 25, 2014. [20] Speakers included, among others, Mauritanian anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid; [21] Tibetan MP Tenzin Dhardon Sharling; [22] Chinese political dissident Yang Jianli; [22] Canadian MP and human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler; [23] North Korean human rights activist Ahn Myong Chul; [24] Naghmeh Abedini, wife of imprisoned Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini;[ citation needed ] and the aunt of imprisoned Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López. [24]
The summit's Courage Award was given to Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was the keynote speaker. [24]
The 2015 summit took place on Tuesday, February 24, 2015. [25] Speakers included, among others, Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector and human rights activist; [26] Lim Il, a North Korean defector and former slave laborer; [26] a Nigerian teenager, identified simply as "Saa", who escaped after being abducted by Boko Haram; [27] [28] Hong Kong protest leaders Alex Chow and Lester Shum; [29] Pierre Torres, a French journalist who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months; [30] Turkish journalist Yavuz Baydar; [31] Moroccan politician Fouzia Elbayed; [32] and Tibetan politician Dicki Chhoyang. [33]
The summit's Courage Award was given to Raif Badawi, an imprisoned Saudi Arabian writer and activist, [34] and accepted on his behalf by Elham Manea, Professor at the University of Zurich. [35] The Women's Rights Award was given to Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and the founder of My Stealthy Freedom. [1]
The 2016 summit took place on Tuesday, February 23, 2016. Speakers included, among others, Ensaf Haidar, wife of jailed Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi; Anastasia Lin, Miss World Canada 2015 and an advocate for human rights in China; Vian Dakhil, Iraqi politician and ISIS victim's advocate; Svitlana Zalishchuk, a Ukrainian politician and key figure in the Euromaidan movement of 2013; Darya Safai, a Belgian-Iranian women's rights advocate; Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Turkish human rights advocate; Lee Young-guk, a former bodyguard of Kim Jong-il who defected to South Korea; Polina Nemirovskaia, Russian human rights activist; David Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland; and Chinese dissident Yang Jianli. [36]
The summit's Courage Award was given to jailed Venezuelan opposition leaders Antonio Ledezma and Leopoldo López. Relatives of the two men accepted the award on their behalf. [36] The 2016 Women's Rights award went to Vian Dakhil, the only female Yazidi member of Iraqi Parliament, and Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, a German-born psychologist who founded a clinic in Iraq for women victims of the Islamic State. [37]
The 2017 summit took place on Tuesday, February 21, 2017. Speakers included Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch; Irwin Cotler, chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights; Jakub Klepal, executive director of Forum 2000; Can Dündar, exiled Turkish journalist; Zhanna Nemtsova, Russian journalist and activist; Anastasia Zotova, Russian activist and wife of Ildar Dadin; Antonietta Ledezma, daughter of imprisoned Venezuelan politician Antonio Ledezma; Chito Gascon, Filipino activist; Taghi Rahmani, Iranian journalist and husband of Narges Mohammadi; Alfred H. Moses, chair of UN Watch; El Sexto, Cuban graffiti artist and activist; Nyima Lhamo, exiled Tibetan activist and niece of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche; Biram Dah Abeid, Mauritanian anti-slavery activist; Astrid Thors, Finnish politician; Mohamed Nasheed, Maldivian activist; Medard Mulangala, DRC opposition leader; James Jones, documentary filmmaker; Kim Kwang-jin, North Korean defector; and Đặng Xuân Diệu, Vietnamese human rights activist. [38]
The 2017 Women's Rights Award was given to "Shirin", a Yazidi woman who escaped sexual slavery in the Islamic State, and author of I Remain a Daughter of the Light (Ich bleibe eine Tocher des Lichts), recently published in Germany. [38] [39] The 2017 Courage Award was given to Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives and the country's leading human rights activist. [40]
The 2018 summit took place on Tuesday, February 20, 2018. Speakers included Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch; Luis Almagro, Uruguayan politician and Secretary General of the Organization of American States; Bolivian attorney and Human Rights Foundation associate Javier El-Hage; Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan; Cuban psychologist, journalist, and activist Guillermo Fariñas; Zimbabwean pastor and dissident Evan Mawarire; Effy Nguyen, son of Vietnamese activist and political prisoner Nguyen Trung Ton; Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui; Chinese dissident Yang Jianli; Hong Kong bookshop owner Lam Wing-kee; Tibetan monk and activist Golog Jigme; British journalist Jonny Gould; Farida Abbas Khalaf, Yazidi author of The Girl Who Beat ISIS; Ruth Dreifuss, first female president of Switzerland; Congolese human rights activist Julienne Lusenge; María-Alejandra Aristeguieta Álvarez, coordinator of Iniciativa Por Venezuela; Canadian former MP Irwin Cotler; Venezuelan politician and former political prisoner Antonio Ledezma; Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States; Ugandan LGBT rights activist Kasha Jacqueline; Iranian-Canadian activist Maryam Nayeb Yazdi; Iranian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari; Maryam Malekpour, sister of Iranian political prisoner Saeed Malekpour; Fred and Cindy Warmbier, parents of the late Otto Warmbier, an American student who died after being tortured in North Korea; Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae; Russian dissident Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza; Congolese women's rights advocate Julienne Lusenge and American attorney and diplomat Alfred H. Moses. [41]
The 2018 Courage Award was given to Russian dissident Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza. [42] The 2018 Women's Rights Award was given to Congolese women's rights advocate Julienne Lusenge. [43]
The 2019 summit took place on Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Speakers included Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch; Syrian journalist Abdalaziz Alhamza; American attorney and diplomat Alfred H. Moses; Human Rights Foundation associate Centa Rek; Tibetan filmmaker and activist Dhondup Wangchen; Venezuelan diplomat Diego Arria; Saudi-Canadian activist Ensaf Haidar, wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi; Nicaraguan opposition leader Felix Maradiaga; Moroccan politician Hakima El Haite; American journalist James Kirchick; human rights lawyer Juan Carlos Gutiérrez; exiled Burundian poet and activist Ketty Nivyabandi; Canadian MP Michael Levitt; Vietnamese human rights lawyer Nguyễn Văn Đài; Somali activist Nimco Ali; Kurdish journalist and activist Nurcan Baysal; Swedish journalist and editor Paulina Neuding; Richard Ratcliffe, husband of British-Iranian activist Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe; Vicente de Lima II, brother of jailed Filipino lawyer Leila de Lima; and Chinese dissident Yang Jianli. [44]
The 2019 Courage Award was given to Tibetan filmmaker and activist Dhondup Wangchen, who "exposed life under Chinese rule through a groundbreaking documentary, Leaving Fear Behind." [45] [46] The 2019 Women's Right's Award went to Somali activist Nimco Ali for her campaign to end female genital mutilation. [47] [48]
Partners include the following organizations: [49]
Reporters Without Borders is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization focused on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as founded on the belief that everyone requires access to the news and information, in line with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that recognises the right to receive and share information regardless of frontiers, along with other international rights charters. RSF has consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organisation of the Francophonie.
Yang Jianli is a Chinese dissident with a United States residency. He is the son of a Communist Party leader. Yang was detained in China in 2002 and was released in 2007. He now lives in the United States, where he is a human rights activist.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament.
Hillel C. Neuer is a Canadian-born international lawyer, writer, and the executive director of UN Watch, a human rights NGO and UN watchdog group based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Emadeddin Baghi is an Iranian Journalist, human rights activist, prisoners' rights advocate, investigative journalist, theologian and writer. He is the founder and head of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in Iran, and the author of twenty books, six of which have been banned in Iran. Baghi was imprisoned in connection with his writings on the Chain Murders of Iran, which occurred in Autumn 1998, and imprisoned again in late 2007 for another year on charges of "acting against national security." According to his family and lawyers, Baghi has been summoned to court 23 times since his release in 2003. He has also had his passport confiscated, his newspaper closed, and suspended prison sentences passed against his wife and daughter. Baghi was rearrested on 28 December 2009 on charges related to an interview with Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri. Baghi was released and then again rearrested on 5 December 2010.
Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-American journalist, author, and women's rights activist. Alinejad works as a presenter/producer at VOA Persian Service, a correspondent for Radio Farda, a frequent contributor for Manoto television, and a contributing editor for IranWire. Alinejad focuses on criticism of the status of human rights in Iran, especially women's rights in Iran. Time magazine named her among its 2023 honorees for Women of the Year.
Antonio José Ledezma Díaz is a Venezuelan lawyer, opposition politician and former political prisoner. After unsuccessfully challenging for the leadership of Democratic Action in 1999, he founded a new party, the Fearless People's Alliance.
Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is a series of global conferences run by the New York–based non-profit Human Rights Foundation under the slogan "Challenging Power". OFF was founded in 2009 as a one-time event and has taken place annually ever since. The forum aims to bring together notable people, including former heads of state, winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, prisoners of conscience, as well as of other public figures in order to network and exchange ideas about human rights and exposing dictatorships.
The Civil Courage Prize is a human rights award which recognizes "steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk—rather than military valor." The prize was founded in 2000 by the Northcote Parkinson Fund. The goal of the prize is not to create a "ranking", but "to draw attention individually to some extraordinary heroes of conscience." It was inspired by the example of Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz is a Turkish lawyer, journalist and human rights activist.
Raif bin Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi writer, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.
We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution was an international summit organized by the Geneva-based non-governmental organization UN Watch, and attended by an international collection of non-governmental organizations to discuss issues of discrimination and persecution, particularly those of racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination against minorities. It occurred over two days, September 21 and 22 of 2011, across the street from a United Nations conference referred to as Durban III.
Freedom Collection is a digital repository sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Southern Methodist University's campus in Dallas, Texas. The collection documents major players in human rights and freedom movements around the world during the 20th and 21st centuries through video interviews and documents. Contributors include former president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Syrian dissident and author Ammar Abdulhamid, former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic Václav Havel, Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, former president of Peru Alejandro Toledo, and Egyptian author Saad Eddin Ibrahim. At its launch on March 28, 2012, the collection consisted of 56 interviews. As of 2022, the Freedom Collection website was last updated in 2016 and its YouTube channel, where video interviews are available to watch, was last updated in October 2015. It is unclear if the project is still active.
Vian Dakhil is a current member of the Iraqi parliament. She is the only Yazidi Kurd in the Iraqi Parliament.
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) is a Canadian non-governmental organization dedicated to pursuing justice through the protection and promotion of human rights. The RWCHR's name and mission is inspired by Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian legacy.
Julienne Lusenge is a Congolese human rights activist recognized for advocating for survivors of wartime sexual violence. She is co-founder and President of Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI) and director of the Congolese Women's Fund (FFC).
Citizen Power Initiatives for China, previously known as Initiatives for China or Citizen Power for China, is pro-democracy movement and NGO committed for a peaceful transition to democracy in China through non-violent strategies based in Washington, D.C. The organization has been involved with works on U.S. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, the Australian Magnitsky Act, representing Liu Xiaobo at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and 2014 Hong Kong protests.
Shaparak Shajarizadeh is an Iranian women's rights activist and a former political prisoner. She is also a member of women's committee of Iran Transition Council. Shajarizadeh is well known for her efforts in empowering Women's rights in Iran and activism against Iran's contemporary compulsory hijab law. She possess anti-headscarf sentiments and also pioneered online campaigns such as "Girls of Revolution Street" and "White Wednesdays" as a part of the protests against compulsory hijab in an effort to encourage both men and women in Iran to post images in the social media platforms of themselves without wearing headscarves. She was arrested and imprisoned twice for defying Iran's laws about compulsory hijab laws.