Irwin Cotler, international human rights lawyer for political prisoners, legal scholar, and former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, received the 2025 Defender of Freedom Award at the 17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18th, 2025.
Full Remarks:
May I begin by saying how moved and humbled I am by receiving this Defense of Freedom Award from the Geneva Summit, from UN Watch and its partners with whom I’ve had the privilege and the pleasure of working together in common cause since the very founding of the Geneva Summit.
And so I take this award as being in recognition of the common causes of the struggle for human rights and freedom all these years and in particular, in recognition of the political prisoners who’ve put not only their livelihood but their lives on the line in defense of these fundamental freedoms.
They include the human rights hero Vladimir Kara-Murza who embodies the struggle for democracy in Russia and for justice in Ukraine, who survived two assassination attempts and captivity in Gulag to emerge together with his wife Evgenia, also here at this summit, to be at the forefront of the struggle for democracy, freedom, and political prisoners in our time.
And represented here as well, those who are struggling for human rights in China. These include Times Wang, the son of Dr. Wang Bingzhang, one of the longest serving political prisoners in China, the founder of the China Democracy Movement whose case and cause I took up some 23 years ago, then as a member of Parliament, and who was sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary confinement, where he languishes today.
They include as well Sebastien Lai, the son of the heroic Hong Kong political prisoner Jimmy Lai, imprisoned and in solitary confinement for speaking the truth, for defending media freedom.
And also Rahima Mahmut, a leader of the Uyghur human rights movement where the Muslim Uyghurs have been the target of mass atrocities of Xi Jinping’s China. Mass atrocities, as our Wallenberg Center sought to point out, are constitutive of acts of genocide.
And including here as well at this summit are the brave Iranian political prisoners, those at the forefront of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, such as Nazanin Afshin-Jam, such as Reza Pahlavi, also represented here.
A case and cause that I’ve been associated with for over 30 years, first as a law professor and then as a member of Parliament. And they include also, in this struggle, the Woman Life Freedom movement, if you wish, with regard to the women of Afghanistan, represented here by Massouda Jalal, whom I had the pleasure to host in Parliament some 20 years ago and where the movement here in Afghanistan, like that in Iran, is combating the gender apartheid that characterizes both arenas.
And they are joined as well by human rights heroes like María Machado and Edmundo González from Venezuela, the leaders of the democracy movement there. And I’ve had the pleasure of hosting María Machadoat the Canadian Parliament some 15 years ago, both of them now co-recipients of the Moral Courage Award by the Geneva Summit.
And where, with respect to Venezuela, I’ve been engaged as well with political prisoner advocacy including that of Leopoldo López, a former political prisoner also present here at the Geneva Summit.
And they include Betlehem Isaak, the daughter of Swedish-Eritrean political prisoner Dawit Isaak. The longest imprisoned journalist in the world and where the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights and myself have been involved and engaged in public advocacy with respect to both media and political freedom in Eritrea and the specific case and cause of Dawit Isaak.
And finally, reference must be made as well to Tirad Badawi. The son of heroic and imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi whose heroic case and cause I took up some 11 years ago, then as a member of Parliament, and where his wife and children now living in Canada have been deprived of the companionship and love of their father all these years.
I would be remiss if I did not reference the hostages cruelly and forcibly abducted on the occasion of the October 7th mass atrocities, described as the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, who continue to languish in Hamas’s captivity where every day that they are in that captivity constitutes an ongoing crime against humanity and where their immediate and unconditional release is a standalone imperative of the first order, a humanitarian, moral, legal, and international imperative for which we have to continue to advocate in common cause.
And so I close by saying that these inspirational heroes and the cases and causes they represent remind us of our individual and collective responsibility to speak on behalf of those who cannot be heard, to bear witness on behalf of those who cannot testify, to act on behalf of those who are putting not only their livelihood, but their lives on the line, in defense of our common cause, in defense of our common humanity.
And so at times such as these qui s’excuse s’accuse that whoever remains silent indicts himself and herself and where silence is complicity with evil, where silence is coming down on the side of the tormentors and not on the side of the tormented.
And so, together with UN Watch and its partners represented here at this compelling Summit we must not only speak up and stand up but act together in this abiding struggle for freedom where these political prisoners represented here have transformed our history and where now we have to be at the forefront of these torchbearers for freedom and human rights because they represent all of us in the struggle for our common humanity, for democracy, for freedom, for human rights.
Thank you.
The award was presented at the Geneva Summit on Tuesday, February 18th by Vladimir Kara-Murza:
A separate presentation of the award by Hillel Neuer also took place a day prior at the UN Opening Session of the Geneva Summit:
