Across the globe, human-rights activists risk life and limb every day to fight against intolerable conditions in their nations. Three of those activists were honored in Chicago on Nov. 17 with the Human Rights Defender Award at the annual Human Rights Watch Voices for Justice dinner.
This year's honorees illustrate the limits of freedom of expression in the Middle East, the massive 'ethnic cleansing' and injustice in Darfur, Sudan, and the plight of HIV/AIDS affected women in Africa.
Human Rights Watch's global rights defender awardees for 2005 are:
— Omid Memarian, a journalist and web-blogger from Iran,
— Salih Mahmoud Osman, a lawyer and human rights activist from Darfur, and
— Beatrice Were, an advocate for the rights of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Were has worked with Human Rights Watch to call attention to Uganda's recent and dramatic backslide in HIV-prevention policy.
See www.hrw.org .