LIDIA YUSUPOVA

 LIDIA YUSUPOVA

Lidia Yusupova is a Chechen lawyer and human rights activist hailed by the BBC as “the bravest woman in Europe.”

Yusupova was born September 15, 1961 in Grozny, Soviet Union to a Russian mother and a Chechen father and studied literature at the Karachevo-Cherkeski Institute. She soon earned a law degree from the Chechen University of Grozny where she later became a lecturer.

Lidia Yusupova is the Coordinator of the Moscow-based human rights organization ‘Memorial’ and the former director of its Grozny office. She is an internationally recognized human rights defender known for her defense of Chechnya’s victims of war and internally displaced refugees.

Between 1994 and 1996, Lidia experienced the atrocities of the First Chechen War, and what she saw had a lasting effect on Yusupova’s character – she witnessed the loss of many friends, colleagues and family members.

It was during the following Chechen war in 2000 that she began to devote herself to human rights, using her legal expertise and personal experience during both wars to help others that were entangled in the bloody conflict. Throughout the conflict, Yusupova tirelessly documented cases of serious human rights violations committed by the Russian as well as the Chechen security forces. She was documenting allegations of executions, disappearances, rape, and torture in Chechnya. She not only received families at her office but undertook hazardous trips to investigate the sites of disappearances in an effort to confront the military. Subsequently her office was ransacked and staff continuously threatened. She continues her struggle to defend human dignity in a chaotic war situation and in an environment where the working conditions and security of human rights advocates and journalists are increasingly compromised. She has worked for the Russian dissident-led NGO, Memorial, which provides victims of human rights abuses with legal assistance and informs the international community about rights violations committed by authorities on both sides of the conflict.

In spite of the increasingly marginalized position of Chechen human rights groups, Lidia’s extensive collection of victims’ testimonies enabled “Memorial” to bring several lawsuits against the Russian government and Chechen authorities on allegations of wide-scale executions, disappearances, rapes and torture in Chechnya.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has since made 13 rulings against the Russian government on Chechen cases. 

 

On 7 April 2004, at a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, Lidia received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for her “tireless efforts in a situation of war and extreme danger.”

Yusupova’s reputation as one of the most courageous women in Europe was further enhanced when in 2004 the Martin Ennals Award film on her work was used by the Spanish television network TVE International in a series on Courageous Woman and broadcast worldwide.

In November 2005 she received the Norwegian Rafto Prize for human rights work in “recognition of her brave and unrelenting efforts to document human rights violations and act as a spokeswoman for the forgotten victims of war in Chechnya.” 

In 2007 she was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

Since 2009, she has been active as both a journalist and blogger focusing on issues related to human rights in North Caucasus.

Despite of the loss, over of the years, of many friends, family members and colleagues, Lidia Yusupova continues to be a relentless advocate for human rights in the North Caucasus.

https://www.martinennalsaward.org/hrd/lidia-yusupova/