Catholic Indian Mission Council CIMI from Brazil and Russian human rights organisation MEMORIAL receive Victor Gollancz Prize

The General Secretary of the Catholic Indian Mission Council CIMI from Brazil, José Eden Pereira Magalhães (Brasilia), and the Chairperson of the Russian human rights organisation MEMORIAL, Oleg Orlov, will on 14th November 2009 accept the Victor Gollancz Prize of the Society for Threatened Peoples STP in Göttingen.

CIMI has recognized "in exemplary fashion” the native peoples as equal partners and defends their interests against officials, large land-owners and companies, says the STP laudation for the Indian Mission Council. The Council was launched in 1972 by the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference and supported by liberation theologians. Today more than 300 lay people, members of various orders and priests work for CIMI. They spare no pains in making their own picture of the problems of the indigenous communities deep in the most inaccessible parts of the Amazonas. They make note of the complaints and charges of the Indians against intruders, document violations of land rights, work out with the people concerned strategies of resistance, appear before officials or in political meetings as their spokespeople and keep an eye open throughout the world for allies of the indigenous people

MEMORIAL receives the honour for "the exemplary courage of its staff in day by day risking their lives in a hostile environment”. The Russian human rights organisation was founded during the Perestroika of 1988 and consists today of 80 independent organisations above all in the states of the Russian Federation. MEMORIAL ( dt. Memorial) works both on the clearing up of the Stalinist past and on the research, documentation and publication of present-day human rights violations u.a. in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Members of staff are for this reason constantly being threatened with death. The two women murdered, Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova both worked for MEMORIAL.

The STP has been presenting the Victor Gollancz Prize since the year 2000, which now has a symbolic value of 2.500 euros. Among the previous prize-winners have been the "Mothers of Srebrenica” (Bosnia), the former Russian human rights commissar Sergei Kovalyov and Dr. Halima Bashir (Darfur/Western Sudan). The prize is named after the British Jewish humanist, publisher and writer Victor Gollancz (1893 – 1967), who throughout his life spoke out against crimes against humanity and mobilised help for the survivors.

The Prize will be given this year at the Annual General Meeting of the STP, at which some 150 delegates are expected in Göttingen on 14th and 15th November. Working parties will be discussing the strategies of future STP human rights campaigns.

You are cordially invited to the prize-giving.