Alkarama Award
The Alkarama Award will be awarded every year on international Human Rights Day (10 December) to a person or organization that has significantly contributed to the protection and promotion of human rights in the Arab world.
This year, the Alkarama Award will be presented to Maitre Abdenour Ali-Yahia, an Algerian human rights defender who has been working in human rights for over 40 years (please see below for a short biography). The programme consists of a short introduction of the Alkarama Award and this year's recipient followed by a presentation by Maitre Ali-Yahia himself. Refreshments will be served at the end.
We would be grateful if you could confirm your presence to info@alkarama.org.
Laureate 2009
This year, the award will go to Maitre Abdenour Ali-Yahia for all his work for the protection and promotion of human rights in Algeria.
A lawyer by training, Maitre Abdenour Ali-Yahia was an activist in the Algerian national movement and was jailed for five years during the war of national liberation. Upon independence in 1962, he joined the Constituent Assembly and became a member of the Government, before resigning from his ministerial post in protest of attacks on the rule of law which authorities were making at the time.
Thereafter, he devoted himself to the exercise of his job as a lawyer and as a human rights defender, for which he was detained and deported.
In 1985, Maitre Abdenour Ali-Yahia founded the Ligue algérienne pour la défense des droits de l'homme (la-laddh.org - the Algerian League for the defense of Human Rights), which was officially recognised by the Algerian authorities in 1989. He is now the honorary President of this League.
Born on 18 January 1921, Maitre Abdenour Ali-Yahia is one of the deans of Arab human rights defenders. He is also the author of the publication "Algérie : Raisons et déraison d'une guerre" [Algeria: reasons and irrationality of a war] (Editions L'Harmattan, Paris, 1996) and "La dignité humaine" [Human Dignity] (Editions INAS, Alger, 2007).