This year’s International Hrant Dink Award has been granted to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV/HRFT) and Shaharzad Akbar, a human rights advocate from Afghanistan who works tirelessly in the face of the grave women’s rights crisis in the country.
International Hrant Dink Award is presented every year to individuals, organizations or groups that work for a free and just world free from discrimination, racism and violence, who take personal risks for achieving those ideals, who break the stereotypes and use the language of peace and by doing so give inspiration and hope to others.
This year’s International Hrant Dink Award has been granted to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV/HRFT) and Shaharzad Akbar, a human rights advocate from Afghanistan.
The award ceremony was held yesterday evening (September 15) at the 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory in İstanbul, and was broadcast online.
The HRFT received the award because of its “invaluable contribution to the building of a world free from torture and ill-treatment, and the protection of human dignity,” the foundation said in a statement.
And Akbar was granted the award for his struggle against gender discrimination and efforts to mobilize the international community, it added.
The award named after the journalist assassinated in 2007 was granted for the first time in 2009.
Dream of a world without torture
Speaking on behalf of the TİHV, Metin Bakkalcı said, “We are strengthening our work with the aim of creating an environment where torture and other gross/serious human rights violations, which is our special field of work, will come to an end.
“Our main goal is to realise the dream of a world without torture and to create an environment where there is no need for institutions like ours and thus to end our own existence.”
About Human Rights Association of Turkey
In the aftermath of the military coup of 1980, in a common cause to prevent torture and to ensure the treatment and rehabilitation of individuals subjected to torture, it was founded in 1990 by the Human Rights Association along with 32 human rights defenders.
Thanks to its meticulous work, experience, and know-how on documenting torture and treatment of torture survivors, it has almost become a school in its own right. Through its advocacy and reports seeking to activate the existing mechanisms for combating torture and to establish new mechanisms at local and international level, it has become one the key organisations worldwide spearheading the efforts in preventing torture, inspiring numerous human rights organisations and international bodies.
It has played a pioneering role in the preparation of ‘the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, commonly known as ‘the Istanbul Protocol’, adopted in 1999. It has played a pivotal role in the design and implementation of training programmes for the investigation, documentation, and prevention of torture cases against health and legal professionals in Turkey and across the world. In 2008, thanks to the contribution from the Association of Forensic Medicine Specialists and the Turkish Medical Association, it published ‘the Torture Atlas’, offering a medical documentation of torture cases. Through the centres it has established in Ankara, Diyarbakır, İstanbul, İzmir, Cizre and Van, to this date, it has provided treatment and rehabilitation services to over 20 thousand individuals subjected to torture and ill-treatment; contributing to physical, psychological, and social well-being of torture survivors and their relatives facing trauma. Since 2000, it has been actively working on coping with collective trauma in the light of the principles ‘truth, justice, and reparation’; conducting training programmes, panels, and symposia on the topic in Turkey and abroad. Meanwhile, it continues to lead the efforts for the periodical review of ‘the Istanbul Protocol’.
Despite the countless investigations and court cases it has faced since its very inception, for its relentless efforts, always relying on scientific data and abiding by universal values while bearing witness to cases, for its invaluable contribution to the building of a world free from torture and ill-treatment, and to advancing of democracy, and protection of human dignity, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey
Call for solidarity
In her acceptance speech, laureate Shaharzad Akbar said, “We are also calling on the global feminist movement and the human rights movement, to stand in solidarity with the Afghan people. To not normalize Taliban’s misogyny… To amplify the voices and demands of the Afghan women on the ground for “bread, work, freedom” and the full range of their human rights…”
About Shaharzad Akbar
She was born in 1987 in the Jawzjan province of Afghanistan to a mixed Arab & Uzbek family. During the Taliban rule in Afghanistan between 1996-2001, she lived as a refugee in Pakistan. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Smith College in the U.S.A. in 2009, and her master’s degree in development studies from Oxford University in 2011.
She was partner and chief operating officer with QARA Consulting, a firm owned and run by young Afghans in Kabul which she co-founded in 2010. She worked as an analyst for the Free and Fair Elections Foundations, and as a journalist for BBC Afghanistan. As the Country Director of the Open Society Foundation Afghanistan between 2014 and 2017, she carried out activities supporting civil society and the media in peacebuilding, human rights, and promoting tolerance. In 2017, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as Young Global Leader. Starting from 2017 until 2018, she worked as a Senior Advisor to the Afghan President on High Development Councils and in this capacity, coordinated the prioritization of development projects and programs for high level decision-making. Between 2018-2019, she worked as a Senior Advisor for UNESCO Afghanistan and acted as Deputy on the National Security Council for Peace and Civilian Protection and from 2019 until 2022, she acted as the Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, recently abolished by the Taliban. After the Taliban took power in August 2021, she had to leave her country just as the scores of nationals of Afghanistan.
Her writing has appeared in the international and Afghan media, including the Washington Post, Newsweek, Al Jazeera, and CNN, as well as in academic journals. She is currently an Academy Fellow in Human Rights at the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs, Chatham House in the United Kingdom as well as working to launch a new human rights organization focused on Afghanistan.
In a country where the Taliban regime has caused rapid deterioration in the struggle for human rights, the right to political and civic participation, the right to education, health, and employment, the right to sexual and reproductive health, and anti-discrimination; for her relentless efforts to amplify the voices of women and children in Afghanistan who have been subjected to severe restrictions in exercising their right to education, freedom of expression, freedom of association and assembly and their right to travel; for her resolve to put an end to gender discrimination rampant in her country; for her consistent dedication to mobilising the international community through global solidarity among women, despite the grave women’s rights crisis, Shaharzad Akbar.