Global Citizenship for Human Rights - Human Rights Heroes

  AUNG SAN SUU KYI Aung San Suu Kyi, also called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is born June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). She is is the daughter of the liberation movement leader and national hero of independent Burma Aung San who struggled for   independence from colonial   rule and Khin Kyi and prominent Burmese diplomat. Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After attending high school in India, Suu Kyi studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford, receiving a B.A. in 1967. Until 1988, when she returned to Burma to care for her dying mother, she and her husband lived a rather quiet life. In 1988, when Suu Kyi returned to Burma from abroad, it was amid the slaughter of protesters rallying against U Ne Win and his iron-fisted rule. She soon began speaking out publicly against him, with issues of democra...

  DR. B. R. AMBEDKAR During the last decade of the 19th century, many Indian leaders born among the lower castes like Narayan Guru (1854-1928), Jotiba Phule (1827-1890), and Ramaswamy Naicker 1879-1973) launched massive struggles for the dignity of Dalits throughout India. Ambedkar was the most towering figure among these Dalit leaders. In 1917 he joined the Baroda State Service after returning from his studies in the USA and the United Kingdom, as part of the terms of his scholarship agreement. He worked in the city of Baroda, the place of the ruling family of Gaikwad, which financed his studies abroad. He worked as secretary in the defense office of the Maharaja of Baroda State. However, despite his foreign education, he had to endure insults while at work due to his low caste origin. He was a victim of the cruel dalit discrimination. He suffered the ignominy of having document files hurled by peons at his face. He suffered the humiliating experience of not being serv...

  LUCA COSCIONI “If you were here in front of me, you couldn't hear my voice. Nine years ago I was struck by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It is a neuromuscular disease that is now incurable, which makes those affected paralyzed and unable to speak with their own voice. Today, thanks to science, I can communicate again. I spend an average of 30 seconds to write a word, which will then be read by the speech synthesizer of the computer thanks to which I can speak, express myself. In a word, live. Words have become a scarce resource for me. I have to distill them one by one, as a precious thing.   Still, there are a thousand that I would like to scream. To give thousands of people like me hope. So that the search that could save us doesn't stop. There was a time for the miracles of faith. There is a time for the miracles of science. One day my doctor will, I hope, tell me: "Try to get up, because maybe you walk". The thing is, I don't have a lot of time, we do...

  INDONESIA: Gus Dur: The Hero of Humanity   The fourth president of the Republic of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid also called Gus Dur, is known as a hero of humanity. He has dedicated his life to defending the rights of minority groups such as the ethnic of Chinese (Tionghoa). This group often gets discriminatory treatment as native Indonesians because of their small number. For instance, in the era of Soeharto presidential (1967–1998) - the Indonesian president before Gus Dur - the government through Presidential Instruction number 14 of 1967, stated that Tionghoa groups could only celebrate religious parties or customs within the family and not standing out in public. This discrimination has sparked ethnicity and religious-based tensions in the society.    When Gus Dur served as president (1999-2001), on January 17, 2000, he revoked a presidential instruction that discriminated against religious freedom for Tionghoa ethnic. After this group received r...

  CHEN GUANGCHEN Chinese civil rights activist who rose to prominence by exposing harsh reality of China’s population policy Cheng Guanchemg was born in the rural area of Shandong province in 1971. He lost his sight in the early age and he worked as a civil rights activist in the rural areas of the People’s Republic of China. Because of his self-taught background in law he is often described as a ‘barefoot lawyer’ and he is known for advocating disability rights, land rights for farmers and the welfare of the poor. Reports from his early age said that he was illiterate until 1994 when he signed up for high school meant for the blind people and he studied there for four years. After that he was reported to study Chinese Medicine from 1998 to 2001 and returned to his home province of Shandong. Same time he managed to enrol in law classes and learned enough to help people in his village with his legal skills. Path to prison and back to freedom In 2005 he gained internati...