The Saharawi Women would like to express to Mrs. Haidar their deepest congratulations for the prize that an american organization is going to award her in recognition of her peaceful struggle for peace and justice in the Africa´s last colony: Western Sahara.Former Saharawi political prisoner and human rights defender, Aminatou Haidar, will be rewarded a 2009 Civil Courage Prize, as the champion of non-violent resistance in Western Sahara, in an Award Ceremony that will be held in New York City on October 20, 2009, Train Foundation announced Monday.
According to a statement released by the Organization, Ms. Haidar is a courageous campaigner for self-determination of Western Sahara, as well as against forced "disappearances" and abuses of prisoners of conscience.
Regularly referred to as the "Saharawi Gandhi," Ms. Haidar is one of Western Sahara’s most prominent human rights defenders.Her peaceful efforts have been met with increased police aggression and brutality. In 1987, at the age of 21, Ms. Haidar was one of 700 peaceful protestors arrested for participating in a rally in support of a referendum. Later she was "disappeared" without charge or trial and held in secret detention centres for four years, where she and 17 other Saharawi women were tortured.
In 2005, the Moroccan police detained and beaten her after another peaceful demonstration. She was released after 7 months, thanks to international pressure form groups like Amnesty International and European Parliament.Since then, Ms. Haidar has travelled the globe to expose the Moroccan military’s heavy-handed approach and to plead for the Saharawi People’s right to self-determination.
Her efforts helped change the Moroccan government’s violent tactics for dispersing pro-independence demonstrations. Unfortunately, the torture and harassment of Saharawi human rights defenders continues.Ms. Haidar was born in 1967 in El Aaiun, Western Sahara. She is the mother of two children and holds a baccalaureate in Modern Literature.
She has been awarded the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the 2007 Silver Rose Award (Austria), and the 2006 Juan Maria Bandres Human Rights Award (Spain). She was nominated by the European Parliament to the Andrei Sakarov Human Rights Award. Amnesty International (USA Branch) nominated her for the Ginetta Sagan Fund Award. She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the statement added.
The international Civil Courage Prize, has been sponsored, Since 2000, by the Train Foundation (formerly the Northcote Parkinson Fund), established by the Hon. John Train in 1987, honours extraordinary individuals whose acts, undertaken deliberately, over time, have demonstrated "steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk." The Train Foundation will continue this initiative in cooperation with like-minded organizations world-wide.
