Global Citizenship for Human Rights - Human Rights Heroes

  SOLTAN ACHILOVA Soltan Achilova (71) is an independent photojournalist and reporter in Turkmenistan, one of the most isolated and repressive countries in the world. She is shedding light on the many injustices and human rights violations people face in her country. With almost complete governmental control over its population, citizens of Turkmenistan have scarcely any recourse to defend their rights. Strict surveillance and the denial of fundamental rights are what ignited the fire of activism in Soltan Achilova. She does not expect the human rights situation in Turkmenistan to improve anytime soon, but she wants her fellow citizens, as well as the international community to be aware of the situation in Turkmenistan, even at her own risk Her work illustrates issues affecting Turkmen citizens in their daily lives such as food insecurity, forced and illegal evictions, lack of adequate healthcare and the discrimination faced by people with disabilities. She has reported on th...

  Dmitry Muratov jumped into the limelight recently after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee focused on the reality of the world we live in. A world in which geopolitical battles fought through media narratives and protests against the control of information are increasingly frequent. The Committee labeled the newspaper as righteous and stated that Novaya Gazeta  is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power. The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity made it an important source of information on censurable aspects regarding Russian society which are barely mentioned in other media Mr Muratov is the co-founder and editor of Novaya Gazeta, which has been standing up for press freedom and freedom of speech in Russia for decades, two fundamental rights that have come under heavy attack in Russia and in other parts of the world, under increasingly challeng...

  Born in 1959, the brave Mayan woman from Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchú, is a 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and is a hero for human rights of indigenous people of the world. In order to understand her incredible story, a historical background of Guatemala must be first presented. The Mayan people were the target of a civil war in Guatemala, which was brought on by frictions, both ethnic and socioeconomic, in 1960. 450 villages of the Maya were already demolished when in 1996, the peace agreement in Guatemala was agreed upon, and thus it was visible that there was massive decimation of the Maya due to the war. Menchú’s father was engaged in politics, which encouraged her to also become engaged in politics. For indigenous Mayas to have an improved standard of living was the goal of the Catholic activism of Menchú which was done in her early years. The Peasant Unity Committee, of which her father was a part of (and that she became a part of later) had two goals. The first being t...

  MARTIN ENNALS Martin Ennals (27 July 1927 – 5 October 1991) was a British human rights activist. Ennals served as the Secretary-General of Amnesty International from 1968 to 1980. He went on to help found the British human rights organisation ARTICLE 19 in 1987 and International Alert in 1985. During Ennals's tenure as Secretary General, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Erasmus Prize, and the UN Human Rights Award. Ennals was educated at Queen Mary's Grammar School and the London School of Economics, where he received a degree in international relations. Ennals was present at the 1948 United Nations (UN) General Assembly when it adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not long afterward he began working at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris (1951–1959), where he found himself prominently involved in a historic human rights issue. As secretary and then president of the UNESCO st...