Explained: What is the Martin Ennals Award, the ‘human rights Nobel’, which honoured Father Stan Swamy? | Explained News,The Indian Express
In a special move this year, the Martin Ennals Foundation posthumously honoured Father Stan Swamy for his "many contributions to human rights". Who was Martin Ennals, and what is the intention of the award?
Every year, the Martin Ennals Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, gives out an award that is regarded as the Nobel Prize for human rights defenders. The recipients of this year’s awards include Daouda Diallo from Burkina Faso, Pham Doan Trang from Vietnam and Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja of Bahrain.
In a special move, the Martin Ennals Foundation decided to posthumously pay homage to Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist from Jharkhand who had been arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and passed away in July 2021 at the age of 84.
Ennals was a British activist who spent his life working to secure human rights across the world. He was Secretary-General of Amnesty International from 1968 to 1980. Ennals also co-founded several organisations, such as Article 19, International Alert and Huridocs and formed “the binding force between them”. “We criticise universally because human rights are universal even if they are universally disregarded….there are double standards and double talk and there will always be an infringement of human rights. The work we are doing is part of the overall package of human development whatever the political system, country or cultural background is,” Ennals had said in an interview.
Ennals died in 1991 and, in his memory, the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders is given to “individuals and organisations that have shown exceptional commitment to defending and promoting human rights, despite the risks involved”.
Three people were selected for the award this year. Diallo has been described as “a fearless activist who documents human rights abuses committed in the crossfires of Burkina Faso’s violent conflict”. Meanwhile, one of Vietnam’s top journalists, Trang has been a vociferous defender of freedom of expression, and Khawaja is a “champion of human rights and justice who has galvanised a new generation of activists in the Gulf region”.
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