Martin Ennals (27 July 1927 – 5 October 1991) was a British human rights activist. Ennals served as the Secretary-General of Amnesty International from 1968 to 1980. He went on to help found the British human rights organisation ARTICLE 19, followed by International Alert in 1985.
The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, created in 1993, is granted annually to someone who has demonstrated an exceptional record of combating human rights violations by courageous means and is in need of protection. The award gives international "protective publicity" to human rights defenders around the world, mainly in their country of origin (a unique characteristic of this award, and very important from a protection point of view), through mass media (television, radio and internet). The winner is selected in Geneva, the world center for human rights, by a jury made up of 10 leading international human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Frontline, International Commission of Jurists, etc. (see[1]).
The Martin Ennals Award is considered THE award of the whole human rights movement. It is known as "the Nobel prize for human rights" (Le Monde), "the world prize of human rights" (El Pais"), etc. The Annual Ceremony is an event with world Internet and TV coverage. The most recent ceremony took place at the Victoria Hall in Geneva on 13 October 2011 (see [2]).
| Non-profit organization positions} | ||
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| Preceded by Eric Baker |
Secretary-General of Amnesty International 1968–1980 |
Succeeded by Thomas Hammarberg |