Martin Ennals Award 2020 - Huda Al-Sarari

Huda Al-Sarari is a lawyer and human rights activist from Yemen who has worked with uncovering serious human rights violations in Yemen's secret prisons. Al-Sarari is one of three women finalists for this year's Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. The Norwegian Human Rights Fund stands in solidarity with all human rights defenders who use non-violent means and acts to defend human rights.

Al-Sarari has worked with numerous Yemeni human rights organizations for more than a decade, such as the Yemeni Women's Union, the Adalah Centre for Rights and Freedoms and the National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations. She has investigated, exposed and challenged the network of secret prisons run by foreign governments since 2015, where thousands of prisoners have suffered through torture and arbitrary detention. Through her work, Al-Sarari has uncovered more than 250 cases of serious abuse in the prisons, and engaged both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch in the case. Despite receiving death threats for her activism, she continues to stand with the families of people who have disappeared and continues to fight for their justice. Huda Al-Sarari was honored as a co-finalist by the Aurora Prize in October 2019.

Huda Al-Sarari is one of three woman nominees for the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders 2020. The award will be presented to one of them on 19th February during a ceremony hosted by the city of Geneva. Watch the video to learn more about Huda’s important work in Yemen here:

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