Muhanad al-Hassani, the Syrian lawyer who was sentenced to 3 years in prison in the spring of 2010, will be awarded the most important human rights prize, the Martin Ennals Award, on 15 October 2010. The son of the imprisoned Haitham al-Maleh, the 80-year-old Syrian lawyer of Al-Hassani, will receive the prize on Al-Hassani’s behalf in Geneva.
Al-Hassani has been in detention since 28 July 2009. Furthermore, he has had a travel ban over the last six years before his detention and the Syrian Bar Association has initiated a procedure to disbar him for life. Despite these measures, Al-Hassani continued his fight for human rights. Therefore, the president of the Award’s jury described him as “a man of an exceptional courage, arbitrarily detained in unacceptable conditions for defending the rule of law and the right to organize a human rights organization.”
See for more information the press release of 7 May 2010 in English, Arabic, Spanish or French.
