The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) congratulates Yara Bader, journalist, human rights defender and wife of recently released Mazen Darwish, who was awarded the Human Rights Watch Alison des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism, together with three other human rights activists.

 

The award honours people who work courageously and selflessly to defend human rights, often in dangerous situation and at great personal sacrifice. Human Rights Watch stated that it “ honours Yara Bader for her tremendous courage in speaking out on behalf of Syrian detainees despite grave risks to her safety”.

 

Yara Bader has worked continuously to expose the detention and torture of journalists and detainees in Syria. Her husband Mazen Darwish, Director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression (SCM) was released on 10 August 2015 having been detained, along with two colleagues, Hussein Gharir and Hani Al-Zitani, since February 2012 following a raid on their offices. For further information see (http://www.gc4hr.org/news/view/1065). While he was in detention Yara Bader assumed the role of acting director of SCM and campaigned tirelessly for his release at a national, European and international level.

 

The GHCR co-director Khalid Ibrahim welcomed the announcement saying “Congratulations Yara Bader you kept your smile and hope and struggled against all odds”.

 

She will be honoured at the Voice for Justice Human Rights Watch Annual dinners held in London and Paris between November 2015 and April 2016.

 

The other honourees include Nisha Ayub a human rights defender on transgender rights in Malaysia, Khadija Ismayilova a journalist in Azerbaijan currently in detention and Nicholas Opiyo a leading human rights lawyer and founder of a human rights organisation in Uganda.