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Egyptian doctor and Saudi professor to receive 2011 Alkarama Award

Supporting Human Rights Defenders

GENEVA - The Alkarama Foundation has chosen Dr. Aida Saif Al-Dawla from Egypt and Dr. Said Bin Zair from Saudi Arabia as the 2011 Alkarama Award laureates. Every December, as part of the International Human Rights Day (10 December), the award is presented to one or more human rights defenders in recognition of a lifelong dedication to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Arab world.

This year's laureates will jointly receive the Award at a public ceremony on 6 December at the Geneva International Conference Center.

The laureates:

On 28 June 2016, after more than a year of arbitrary detention and exposure to torture, eight young women were liberated from Port-Said prison after their acquittal by Damietta Criminal Court in Egypt, while two others remain detained to date.

On 19 June 2016, after a month and a half of incommunicado detention, Sudanese students Mai Adil Ibrahim Mohamed and Wifag Mohamed Gourashi Al Tayib were released by the authorities.

UPDATE: Shadi Farrah was released on November 30, 2018 following the completion of a two-year prison sentence

29 June 2016
Your Excellency,
We, the undersigned 244 civil society organizations, spanning across all regions of the world, call on your delegation to stand in solidarity with civil society by supporting the draft resolution on the protection of civil society space, to be considered for adoption at the 32nd session of the Human Rights Council (on 30 June or 1 July). We urge you to cosponsor the draft resolution, reject all amendments, and vote in favour of the resolution if a vote is called.

On 23 June 2016 at 1 am, Malaz Asaad was released from the premises of the General Security in Adlieh, Beirut. He had been missing for almost one month. Welcoming his release, on 24 June 2016 Alkarama informed the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID), to which it had submitted Malaz's disappearance on 17 June 2016.

On 24 June 2016, Alkarama sent a report to the Sub Committee on Accreditation (SCA) of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC-NHRI) in view of its review of

On 23 June 2016, Alkarama wrote to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, deploring the summary executions, enforced disappearances and torture by the Iraqi military forces and state-sponsored militias – including those belonging to the "People's Mobilisation Unit", an umbrella organisation of about 40 militias under the effective control of the Prime Minister – directed against the civilian population fleeing Fallujah.

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