The award is considered the oldest and one of the most prestigious international honors awarded to the lawyer.
ISLAMABAD:
Lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, have received the prestigious Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Award in recognition of their work on behalf of human rights and marginalized communities, it emerged on Tuesday.
Imaan and Chattha are currently serving prison terms after an Islamabad district and sessions court found them guilty earlier this year in a case related to controversial social media posts and sentenced each of them to 17 years in prison.
According to a statement issued by the Forensic Union for the Protection of Human Rights (UFDU) on June 13, the award is considered the oldest and one of the most prestigious international honors awarded to a lawyer.
Created in memory of Ludovic Trarieux, a French lawyer who founded the League for the Defense of Human and Citizen Rights in 1898, the prize is awarded annually to a lawyer who has made an exceptional contribution to the defense of human rights, the rule of law and the fight against racism and all forms of intolerance through his professional commitment.
The awards ceremony was held in the Parliamentary Room of the National Bar Council in Rome. Among those present was the lawyer Antonino Galletti, coordinator of the European and International Law Commission of the National Council of Lawyers.
The statement notes that in recent years, Imaan and Chattha have carried out their work “against a context of increasing pressure on lawyers and human rights defenders in Pakistan, according to international organizations and observers.”
