Global Citizenship for Human Rights - Human Rights Heroes

  EMMA BONINO Emma Bonino is Vice-Chair of the Italian Senate. She was born on the 9th of March 1948 in Bra (Italy). During her career, she has conducted several international human rights campaigns, among the most successful – on the legalization of abortion, the ‘Stop FGM’ campaign to ban Female Genital Mutilation, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court.   For almost thirty years Emma Bonino's political activities have been characterized by the rigorous practice of "active non-violence", defined and adopted by Mahatma Gandhi and now practiced by the Transnational Radical Party. This explains her frequent participation in the hunger and thirst strikes, as well as in the acts of civil disobedience, that have accompanied the main political campaigns launched by her party. Active non-violence aims to force the institutions to respect themselves and their laws. Acts of civil disobedience aim to show the inadequacy or the iniquity of a particular law,...

  NASRIN SOTOUDEH Nasrin Sotoudeh was born in 1963 in a "religious, middle-class" Iranian family. Nasrin Sotoudeh is an exemplary Iranian woman and lawyer who for years has been struggling to restore women’s rights. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections as well as prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offence in Iran. As a direct result of her human rights work defending protesters who had been arrested during the 2009 demonstrations against the contested re-election of ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh was previously imprisoned in Iran from 2010 until 2013. At this time she was charged with “acting against national security” and “propaganda against the regime” and sentenced to 11 years in prison and an additional bar ...

  MARYAM DURANI Maryam Durani (born 1987) is an Afghan activist and women's advocate. Maryam Durani is the daughter of Haji Mohammad Eisa Durani, and she is a member of the Durrani tribe. She graduated from the Payam Noor and American University of Afghanistan. She has a degree in Law and Political Science and business. Despite the area's extremely conservative view toward women, Durani serves as a leader, role model, and advocate for women in Kandahar. She is is one of the most prominent women’s rights advocates in Afghanistan. Durani was a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council. First elected as a Kandahar Provincial Council Member in 2005 at the age of 21 and for a second term in 2009, Durani served as one of only four women on the Council and has brought women's concerns and a woman's perspective to the activities and discussions of the Council. She was also the director of the non-profit Khadija Kubra Women's Association for Culture. With such roles of...