Global Citizenship for Human Rights - Human Rights Heroes

  DESMOND TUTU (b. 1931) Desmond Tutu is one of South Africa’s most well-known human rights activists, winning the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in resolving and ending apartheid in South Africa. Known as the voice of the voiceless Black South Africans he was an outspoken critic of apartheid. Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born on October 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, South Africa. His father was an elementary school principal and his mother worked cooking and cleaning at a school for the blind. The South Africa of Tutu's youth was rigidly segregated, with Black Africans denied the right to vote and forced to live in specific areas. Tutu's rise to international prominence began when he became the first Black person to be appointed the Anglican dean of Johannesburg in 1975. It was in this position that he emerged as one of the most prominent and eloquent voices in the South African anti-apartheid movement, especially important considering that many of the movement's promi...

  THE LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (YUCOM) The Lawyers’ Committee For Human Rights (YUCOM) was founded in 1997 as an expert, voluntary, non-governmental organization whose members are legal experts engaged in promoting and advocating for the rule of law and compliance with human rights, raising public awareness, conceiving, establishing and leading civic initiatives, providing legal assistance to victims of human rights violations, as well as developing co-operation with national and international organizations involved in human rights’ protection and promotion. YUCOM is renowned as an organization advocating for human rights and promoting the active participation of citizens through legal initiatives. It has profiled itself and gained much recognition as a human rights defender organization. Today, YUCOM, as a member of numerous ad-hoc coalitions, has both the capacity and an extended experience in successfully leading campaigns for the reform of legislature and legal...

  RAIF (RAEF) MUHAMMED BADAWI (b. 1984) Badawi is a writer and activist from Saudi Arabia. He created the website Free Saudi Liberals where he wrote about free speech. In 2012, he was arrested on a charge of insulting Islam and brought to court for charges involving apostasy. In his writings, he criticized religion in Saudi Arabia. He was originally given a death sentence but then sentenced to 1000 lashes and ten years in prison in 2014. In 2015, he endured 50 lashes in public. While in prison, he has undertaken hunger strikes to protest the conditions. Badawi was first detained on apostasy charges in 2008, but was released after a day of questioning. The government banned him from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts in 2009. The family of Badawi's wife subsequently filed a court action to forcibly divorce the couple on grounds of Badawi's alleged apostasy. Following Badawi's 2012 arrest, Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, ...

  VOJIN DIMITRIJEVIC Vojin Dimitrijević was born on July 9, 1932 in Rijeka (then in Italy, today in Croatia). Vojin Dimitrijević (July 9, 1932 - October 5, 2012) was a professor of law, public intellectual and prominent Serbian human rights activist and expert in international law. He was one of the most sincere and persistent human rights fighters in Serbia   Dimitrijevic was the director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, a Serbian NGO opposed to Slobodan Milosevic's regime. He has held that position since the beginning of 1995.   In 1956 he graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, where he received his doctorate in 1965 and continued to work as a professor from 1960 to 1998. He was ordered to retire early in 1998, while a full professor, for opposing the newly enacted and repressive Law on Universities. Since 1995 he has been the director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, and since 2005 a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Union U...

  HARRIET TUBMAN (1822-1913) Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women’s suffrage supporter. She became a well-known speaker on the experiences of slavery and an advocate for the rights of African Americans and black women. Tubman is one of the most recognized icons in American history and her legacy has inspired countless people from every race and background. Tubman’s exact birth date is unknown, but estimates place it between 1820 and 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Born Araminta Ross, the daughter of Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, Tubman had eight siblings. By age five, Tubman’s owners rented her out to neighbors as a domestic servant. Early signs of her resistance to slavery and its abuses came at age twelve when she intervened to keep her master from beating a...