The annual Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk was established in 2005 to honour the work of a human rights defender or group of human rights defenders who, through non-violent work, are courageously making an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of the human rights of others, often at great personal risk to themselves.

The Award seeks to focus international attention on the human rights defender's work, thus contributing to the recipient’s personal security, and a cash prize of €15,000 is awarded to the Award recipient and his/her organisation in an effort to support the continuation of this important work.

Over 100 nominations for the 2012 Front Line Defenders Award had been received by the nomination deadline date of the 31st January 2012. We will be contacting all of the submittors of nominations in the coming months once a shortlist of nominees has been compiled. We would like to thank all of the submittors for taking the time to nominate for the Award this year.

Here, Igor Kalyapin of the Joint Mobile Group (Russian Federation) speaks about the effects of receiving the 2011 Front Line Defenders Award: