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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ANNUAL DINNER
Voices for Justice
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London Annual Dinner
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The Human Rights Watch Annual Dinner celebrates the valour of ordinary people who put their lives on the line to defend the rights of others. At this year's dinner, we honour three activists--from India, Turkey, and Chad--whose work illuminates some of the many issues addressed by Human Rights Watch: the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India, freedom of expression in Turkey, and the pursuit of justice for crimes against humanity in Chad. Human Rights Watch collaborates with these courageous human rights defenders to create a world in which citizens live free of violence, discrimination, and oppression.
This year Human Rights Watch is proud to honour:
Meena Seshu, India
Sanar Yurdatapan, Turkey
Souleymane Guengueng, Chad
Human Rights Defender Biographies
To learn more about each of this year's London Defenders and their work, please read the brief biographies below . For more background information on each country, please visit our countries page at www.hrw.org/countries.html.
Meena Seshu, India
Meena Seshu is one of India's most compelling and creative human rights and AIDS activists. The success of her organisation in fighting AIDS comes from approaching the HIV/AIDS crisis as a human rights issue. Ms. Seshu is the general secretary of SANGRAM, an organisation in Sangli, India, that has helped stem HIV/AIDS through empowerment of women in prostitution, enabling them to organise both for protection of their rights and to become agents of HIV prevention. Human Rights Watch worked with SANGRAM in 2002 and documented how the Indian police and local thugs obstructed the group's life-saving work through harassment and abuse of its AIDS outreach workers. Ms. Seshu, who has endured personal attacks by local authorities, has not let that stop her from working on behalf of some of India's most marginalised people.
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Date
Thursday, 16 October 2003
Time
6:30pm Reception
7:30pm Programme
8:30pm Dinner
Location: Victoria & Albert Museum, London SW7
Dinner Chairs: Tony Elliott, Sigrid Rausing, and John J. Studzinski
Tables
Underwriter
(£10,000 per table)
Benefactor
(£5,000 per table)
Patron
(£3,500 per table)
Supporter
(£2,000 per table)
Individual Tickets
Individual Underwriter
(£1,000 per ticket)
Individual Benefactor
(£500 per ticket)
Individual Patron
(£350 per ticket)
Individual Supporter
(£200 per ticket)
For more information or to purchase tickets to the Human Rights Watch Annual Dinner please call the Development & Outreach Office on 020 7713 2773.
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Sanar Yurdatapan, Turkey
Sanar Yurdatapan bravely and ingeniously mocks Turkey's harsh restrictions on freedom of expression. In Turkey, it can be dangerous to question the official state line on the role of Islam in politics, the plight of the Kurdish ethnic minority, and the power of the military. Mr. Yurdatapan has republished banned materials, investigated human rights massacres against the Kurdish minority, and publicly condemned the laws that restrict freedom of expression. He has worked with Human Rights Watch to focus public attention on the unjust imprisonment of Kurdish parliamentarians and to defend indicted publishers, writers and politicians. Mr. Yurdatapan, who has been imprisoned three times and often subjected to harassment, unabashedly and creatively defends a principle--the right to disagree vocally and protest peacefully--which is a touchstone of the human
rights movement.
Souleymane Guengueng, Chad
Souleymane Guengueng is the founder and vice president of the Chadian Association of Victims of Political Repression and Crime (AVCRP) and a main force behind the case against former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, who was arrested in Senegal and may soon face extradition to Belgium. Mr. Guengueng almost died during two years of mistreatment in Habré's prisons, and he watched hundreds of people succumb to malaria, starvation, and torture. When Habré fell, Mr. Guengueng founded the AVCRP, which gathered files on 792 victims to bring Habré to justice. Mr. Guengueng hid the files underneath his mud-brick home, where they stayed for eight years until he handed them to a Human Rights Watch researcher. These files formed the core of the case against Habré in Senegal, where he was charged with crimes against humanity and torture.
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