We are delighted to announce that Zholia Parsi (Afghanistan) and Manuchehr Kholiqnazaro (Tajikistan) have been awarded the 2024 Martin Ennals Award for their outstanding work as human rights defenders. The Jury recognised these two inspiring activists for their exceptional courage to stand up and fight for human dignity and the rights of their communities.
The two laureates were recognised and celebrated at the Martin Ennals Award (MAE) Ceremony on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Martin Ennals Award, which took place on 21 November 2024 in the Salle communale de Plainpalais in Geneva, Switzerland.
Meet the Laureates of the 2024 Martin Ennals Award
Zholia Parsi – Afghanistan
“I won’t let the Taliban silence us with fear, women have every right to education, to work, to visit the neighbourhood or to travel abroad.”
Zholia is a teacher from Kabul, Afghanistan. Having lost her career and seeing her daughters deprived of their education with the Taliban takeover in August 2021, she founded the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women (SMAW) to protest the return of policies and practices against women’s rights and fundamental freedoms. She displayed remarkable leadership and resilience in organising numerous public protests despite the risks involved. The grassroots movement that is the SMAW quickly grew momentum in Kabul and other provinces, now counting 180 members and having mobilised communities to resist the Taliban’s policies and practices.
She was arrested in the street by armed Taliban in September 2023, and detained along with her son. She was released after three months of torture and ill-treatment under their custody, which further strengthened her resolve to resist Taliban oppression and repression.
“This award is a symbol of the voice of women in Afghanistan who, despite challenges and dangers, continue fighting and keep hope in their hearts.
Today, I stand before you to say that this Award I receive belongs to all the women who took a step on this dangerous and difficult path. Women who, at home, on the streets, and in work environments, fight every second for their rights and the rights of their fellow human beings.
I stand here as one of the representatives of these brave women and proudly accept this Award in their name.”Zholia Parsi – excerpt from her acceptance speech (sent via video)
Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov – Tajikistan
“Human rights are for everyone, my work is about speaking and working with everyone to ensure the respect of human rights. This belief has guided me throughout my life and I am convinced this is the only way to move forward.”
Manuchehr is a Pamiri human rights lawyer from the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), Tajikistan. He is serving a 16-year-long prison sentence after what is widely considered an unfair trial in retaliation for his human rights work.
As Director of the Lawyers’ Association of Pamir (LAP), he led strategic advocacy efforts in the GBAO, a region marked by its ethnic minority and historical tensions with the central government, including by lobbying for the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law and practice, and by providing legal support to residents of the GBAO.
Through the human rights initiatives Commission 44 and Group 6, he played a key role in investigating the death of youth leader Gulbiddin Ziyobekov in November 2021, and the violent repression of subsequent mass protests in the regional capital Khorog. The investigation resulted in critical evidence of an unlawful killing, possibly an extrajudicial execution of the young man, and the unlawful use of force by security forces against protesters, resulting in two deaths, seventeen injured and hundreds detained.
He was arrested on 28 May 2022, along with two other members of Commission 44, amid a widespread crackdown on local informal leadership and GBAO residents.
Ceremony highlights and the jury roundtable
Unfortunately, the laureates were not able to attend the ceremony; Gerald Staberock (Secretary General of OMCT) accepted the award on behalf of Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov and Philippe Currat (Chair of the MEA) received the honour on behalf of Zholia Parsi.
Following the recognition of the laureates, Christina Kitsos, Mayor and Administrative Counsellor of the City of Geneva, delivered a speech. The ceremony concluded with closing remarks from Nada Al Nashif, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.
After the ceremony, a reception was held followed by a roundtable on global issues with the jury, moderated by Cynthia Houniuhi, a climate activist from the Solomon Islands and the current President of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC). HURIDOCS, a proud member of the Martin Ennals Award Jury, was represented at the 30th-anniversary ceremony by its Executive Director, Danna Ingleton. When asked about global human rights movements and the tools and synergies used in HURIDOCS to advance human rights, she responded “(…)From the perspective of HURIDOCS, the main tool has been and is always going to be information, and leveraging it and making sure that we are bringing the information from the right places to the right people.” She went on to explain how HURIDOCS utilises technology to further its mission:
“At HURIDOCS we build our own open-source software called Uwazi, which is a database software. This is important because we are supporting the open-source community. We need to have alternatives to some of the big-tech companies that are having complete monopoly over our information and data.
“It is not just about the technology, we have a tech wing that creates this incredible open-source software, but we have a whole team of experts in documenting human rights violations. So when we work with partners to bring them a new database, it’s not just not about the database, it is about how they are organising information, how it fits with the theory of change and what kind of data structure they use. So I think it is not necessarily getting swept up in the digital tools, but recognising that there always has to be a human involved and human first.”
Danna Ingleton – Executive Director, HURIDOCS
Watch the ceremony:
Watch the jury roundtable:
The Martin Ennals Award
The independent Jury of the Martin Ennals Award is made up of representatives from ten of the world’s leading human rights organisations. HURIDOCS is a proud member of the Jury, alongside Amnesty International, Bread for the World, International Commission of Jurists, FIDH, Front Line Defenders, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, World Organisation against Torture and International Service for Human Rights.
In addition to Jury members, a diverse group of human rights organisations compose a Regional Panel to provide expertise on the various geographic contexts in which MEA nominees’ work: Cairo Institute for Human Rights Euro-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies DefendDefenders Forum – Asia Asian Human Rights Commission Civil Rights Defenders.
To find out more about the 2024 Martin Ennals Award, visit the Martin Ennals Award website.