Five Activists Win Human Rights Watch Awards

Honored for Courage in Exposing Abuse and Seeking Justice

(New York, September 15, 2008) – Five brave and selfless advocates of human rights from Burma, Congo, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan have been awarded the prestigious 2008 Human Rights Defender Awards, Human Rights Watch said today. All five have been persecuted and threatened for their work. One winner, Saudi lawyer Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, is under a travel ban, which Human Rights Watch urges the Saudi government lift so that he may receive his award in person in London.
The five winners of Human Rights Watch’s 2008 Human Rights Defender Awards are:

* Bo Kyi, a co-founder of Burma’s Assistance Association of Political Prisoners;
* Mathilde Muhindo, who works to stop the use of rape as a weapon of war in Democratic Republic of Congo;
* Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, a human rights lawyer in Saudi Arabia;
* Sunila Abeysekera, founder of the Sri Lankan human rights group INFORM; and,
* Umida Niazova, an Uzbek journalist who covered the turmoil in Andijan.

“Despite the dangers and difficulties they face every day, these five activists continue to expose abuses and seek justice for victims of human rights violations in their own countries,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s an honor to stand with such brave and determined people, and we hope that this award will help them to keep working as effectively and safely as possible.”

Human Rights Watch staff work closely with the human rights defenders as part of our human rights investigations in more than 80 countries around the world. These defenders will be honored at the 2008 Human Rights Watch Annual Dinners in Chicago, Geneva, Hamburg, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Toronto, and Zurich.

Bo Kyi, Burma

As a college student, Bo Kyi participated in Burma’s “8.8.88 Uprising,” a popular revolt against military rule that reached a turning point on August 8, 1988. On that day, after months of unrest, millions of people took to the streets calling for an end to military rule. The military government’s violent response to the uprising resulted in the deaths of an estimated 3,000 people during the seven months of protests.

“The outside world largely ignored events inside Burma, but for me there was no escape,” said Bo Kyi. “As a student in Rangoon, I participated in many demonstrations and witnessed the brutal suppression by the riot police that killed and wounded so many.”

Bo Kyi ultimately spent seven years and three months in prison for his political activism. He suffered repeated interrogations, beatings, shackling, and torture in prison, amid squalid living conditions. In prison, Bo Kyi learned to speak and write in English, hiding his educational materials each time a warden passed his cell.

Upon his release from prison, Bo Kyi fled to the Burma-Thailand border, where he helped to found the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners in Mae Sot, Thailand. Some 1,920 political activists remain imprisoned in Burma, where they endure abysmal treatment. The number detained increased dramatically after the August and September 2007 crackdown when security forces brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations of activists, monks and ordinary people.

Assistance Association of Political Prisoners works on behalf of current and former political prisoners and their families. It provides them with financial support and medical care, monitors prison conditions, and advocates internationally for the prisoners’ release.

Over the last 20 years, Bo Kyi has demonstrated unfaltering courage, sharing his story and those of other political prisoners and exposing the Burmese military government’s abuses. Human Rights Watch honors Bo Kyi for his heroic efforts to speak out against Burmese repression and to advocate on behalf of those who have dared to criticize the military government.

Mathilde Muhindo, Democratic Republic of Congo

“Women and children are paying dearly for the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Mathilde Muhindo. “Sexual violence in eastern provinces should be seen in its proper contexts – a war within a war. A war against women.”

Muhindo, once a member of Congo’s parliament, works to support rape victims in South Kivu, in eastern Congo, which has been ravaged by armed conflict for over 10 years, up to today. She draws attention to the widespread and systematic use of sexual violence by government troops and armed groups – including sexual slavery, gang rape and mutilation – and to the disastrous consequences for the victims.

As director of the Olame Centre, a nongovernmental women’s rights organization, Muhindo provides urgently needed psychological and practical assistance to victims of abuse and empowers women to fight against pervasive discrimination and sexual violence. To address the crisis – tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped – she also founded a parliamentary committee to investigate rape as a weapon of war.