Human Rights Award Laureate
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Stephen Bradberry
Tags Share After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of New Orleans residents found that they had no way of returning home. Rebuilding efforts were slow, some areas were simply abandoned, and the Lower Ninth Ward was even going to be turned into wetlands. But Stephen Bradberry would not let this stand. Together with Robert F. Kennedy Human…
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Kim Keun Tae & In Jae Jeun
Tags Share “The last time I saw Kim was in Seoul, for the launch of Speak Truth To Power there. I asked him how he was doing. At the time he was the Speaker of the House and was considering a run for the presidency. What a transformation. What a life he led, and what…
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Gibson Kamau Kuria
Tags Share Gibson Kamau Kuria was once detained in a maximum-security prison for nearly a year. His crime? Representing and defending Wanyiri Kihoro, a former political prisoner who himself had been detained and abused in a torture chamber. Selfless courage has always characterized Kuria, a leading human rights attorney who has spent his professional life…
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Zbigniew Bujak
Tags Share Lech Walesa has called Zbigniew Bujak “One of the most outstanding and bravest fighters for citizens’ rights and Solidarity.” Trained as an electrical technician and soldier, Bujak joined the opposition in 1978 while he was working at a tractor factory. After organizing a strike in 1980, Bujak became the leader of the Warsaw…
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Adam Michnik
Tags Share Despite repeated imprisonments and attempts to expel him from his country, Adam Michnik never stopped speaking against communist rule in Poland. Michnik began his human rights work in the 1960s, participating in protests in 1968 that led to his expulsion from the University of Warsaw and a yearlong stint in jail. Despite these…
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Allan Boesak
Tags Share Reverend Allan Boesak and Beyers Naude fought tenaciously to end apartheid in South Africa. In 1981, Boesak was elected chairman of the Alliance of Black Reformed Christians in Southern Africa. During the 1982 World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) meeting in Canada, Boesak introduced a motion requesting that WARC declare apartheid heresy. The…
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Father Jerzy Popieluszko
Tags Share Father Jerzy Popieluszko’s introduction to the priesthood was counterintuitive. He spent several years in the a Polish special forces unit commissioned specifically to deter young Polish men from entering the priesthood, part of the larger tension in Communist Poland between the open expression of religion and Communism’s animosity towards organized faith. Unlike many…
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Beyers Naude
Tags Share Reverend Allan Boesak and Beyers Naude fought tenaciously to end apartheid in South Africa. Beyers Naude was a South African cleric and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist, who was routinely placed under severe house arrest, monitored by police surveillance, and imprisoned due to his vocal opposition to apartheid. Despite continued legal persecution and…
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CoMadres
Tags Share CoMadres traces its origins to the late 1970s, when a number of women’s groups in El Salvador sought the same truth: the whereabouts of relatives who had gone missing or been assassinated during their nation’s civil war. When Archbishop Oscar Romero encouraged them to unite behind a single banner, CoMadres was born. In…
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Guerline Jozef
Tags Share Guerline Jozef is the Executive Director and Co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, and was one of the first responders to the Del Rio crisis in Texas. A world-renowned Haitian immigrant rights activist, Guerline leads the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a coalition of Black immigrants and activists serving the Haitian, and other Black immigrant…
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Felix Agbor Nkongho (Balla)
Tags Share Felix Agbor Nkongho is a Cameroonian lawyer, human rights defender, and leading advocate for human rights of Cameroonians in the conflict stricken Anglophone region. As the director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), Nkongho spearheads the promotion of democracy, good governance, access to justice and rule of law.…
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