Yesterday human rights organization “People in Need” awarded “Homo Homini” human rights award for 2016 to non-commercial organization “The Committee for the Prevention of Torture”. Awarding took place today in Prague in the framework of the ceremony of human rights documentaries “One World” festival opening.
“It is very important for us to feel the support and solidarity from common people, who are ready to protect human rights not only in their country but also around the world, people who understand that violations of human rights in the neighboring country will inevitably lead to problems in their country, too, – Chairman of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Igor Kalyapin said during the awarding ceremony. – Violation of human rights never remains on some specified territory, it will certainly spread, and I think that in Europe we have seen it happened before many times and we do not need to convince anyone here that this is the fact. That is why I think that the name of this award – Homo Homini – is very symbolical, and I think that solidarity and cooperation are very important not only as state-by-state cooperation, or cooperation between some organizations and institutions. I think that cooperation between communities and people is very important, too”.
(Members of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov, Olga Sadovskaya and Igor Kalyapin during “Homo Homini” award ceremony)
“Homo Homini” award
Starting from 1994 “People in Need” organization annually awards individuals and communities which contributed to human rights protection and non-violent solution of the political conflicts. The past years award winners include Syrian school teacher and activist Suad Navfal, Azeri lawyer Intigam Aliev, human rights defender from Kyrgyzstan Azimzhan Askarov, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who subsequently was awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, a number of prize winners continue to serve sentence in their countries due to political reasons.