Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 2014
Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 2014
The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize of 2013 was awarded to Anar Mammadli, an Azerbaijani human rights defender.
Three Candidates Shortlisted for the 2014 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize
The selection panel, comprising six independent experts and chaired by Anne Brasseur, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), drew up its shortlist from 56 candidates who fulfilled the criteria for the Prize.
B'Tselem is the leading Israeli organisation with Israeli and Palestinian members promoting human rights in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It has endeavoured to document and educate the public and policymakers about all human rights violations, irrespective of who has committed them. B'Tselem sends hundreds of cases to the military and civil authorities, demanding criminal investigations, monitoring all stages of the investigation, and submitting legal appeals where possible. Each year it takes testimonies from victims and eye-witnesses of human rights violations. Recently, it has pioneered an innovative video strategy, distributing video cameras in high conflict areas and training volunteers to use these to document incidents of violence.
The Jesuit Refugee Service Malta is the Maltese branch of the global Jesuit Refugee Service, a non-governmental organisation working to protect the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, through legal advice, psychosocial support, and humanitarian assistance, and through strategic litigation and advocacy. Much of its work is focused on detention centres, where staff and volunteers identify individual protection needs of detainees, provides them with information about asylum and immigration procedures, assess social, psychosocial and medical needs, and obtain the release of children, pregnant women and vulnerable persons.
Anar Mammadli is Azerbaijani human rights defender who has made a marked contribution to the respect of human rights and free elections in his region. He is founder and chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, which since 2001 has monitored votes in Azerbaijan. In December 2013 he was charged with “abuse of office” and this May he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. On March 17, 2016, after almost two and a half years of imprisonment, he was pardoned by the president of Azerbaijan along with a number of high-ranking political prisoners. On April 29, 2024, soon after the recent presidential elections of 7 February 2024, Mammadli was detained again in Baku. The Václav Havel Library and Forum 2000 Foundation expressed their deep solidarity with Anar Mammadli and other political prisoners and appealed to President Aliyev and respective Azerbaijani authorities for their unconditional release and dropping the charges against them.