Posted 2012/9/21
Russia: Memorial Gets Hrant Dink Award
Mr Alexander CherkasovThe international historical and human rights charitable society Memorial has been awarded the 2012 International Hrant Dink Prize.
The award ceremony was held on Hrant Dink’s birthday, September 15, 2012, in Istanbul, Turkey. Welcoming the winners and the audience, the Awards Committee Chairman, Mr. Ali Bayramoğlu, said that the awards once again went to those who work for a world free of discrimination, racism, and violence, and take personal risks for their ideals.
The Laureats are chosen internationally in an open nomination process followed by two rounds of voting by a jury.
At the ceremony, Memorial was represented by Mr. Alexander Cherkasov, Chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Centre and member of the International Memorial board. The organizers have emphasized Memorial’s systematic effort to create an archive of state terrorism and reveal human rights violations.
Memorial appeals to the society at large, the organizers said, to confront human rights violations both in the past and in the present, including in the armed conflict areas. Memorial staff work for the rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers and strive to transform the state authority so that it better serves the rights of its citizens, the statement said.
Hrant Dink (1954—2007), a journalist from Turkey, an ethnic Armenian, was founder and editor of the opposition Agos weekly newspaper. Dink advocated human rights, democratization of Turkey and Turkish-Armenian reconsoliation. He was procecuted three times for “denegrating Turkishness and insulting state institutions” under Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code. Dink was assasinated in 2007 by a Turkish nationalist.
The International Hrant Dink Award was established in 2009.
