The Afghan human rights activist Shaharzad Akbar has been advocating for an inclusive and democratic future for Afghanistan since her youth. Born in northern Afghanistan in 1987, her childhood was marked by her family's escape to Pakistan from the Taliban in 1996. After her bachelor's degree in Anthropology at Smith College in the USA, Shaharzad Akbar became the first Afghan woman to complete a postgraduate degree and MPhil in Development Studies at Oxford University. She is an alumna of the FES Afghanistan Young Leaders Forum (YLF), a mentoring programme from 2004 to 2021 for young Afghan leaders in government, civil society, trade unions, media and academia.
As Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) from 2019 to 2021, Shaharzad Akbar gained international recognition. She on various occasions spoke at the United Nations Security Council and various international fora. Under her leadership, the AIHRC was a trusted point of contact for all Afghans to document human rights violations and advocate for the protection of their rights. Previously, Akbar was a member of the National Security Council and of various development councils of the Afghan government. From 2014 to 2017, she was Country Director of the Open Society Foundation's office in Afghanistan. Shaharzad Akbar was the first chairperson of the 1400 Afghanistan Youth Movement, which she co-founded in 2012. Exemplary for her commitment, the movement's goal was to develop a democratic and inclusive vision of the future across ethnic, religious and political boundaries.
Today, she lives in exile with her family. She heads Rawadari, a human rights organization which campaigns for human rights in Afghanistan, and is a visiting lecturer at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. In 2021, she was awarded the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law and was a finalist for the Sakharov Prize.
With the FES Human Rights Award 2023, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung honours the unwavering commitment of Afghan human rights activist Shaharzad Akbar and her courageous engagement as the last Chairperson of the AIHRC from 2019 to 2021.
Shaharzad Akbar is an impartial voice for democracy and human rights, and did not only criticise the Taliban, but also the Afghan government and the international community during the years of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. She is a genuine advocate for the human rights of all Afghans and, set an example for dialog and reconciliation with her participation in the intra-Afghan peace conference in 2019 in a country torn apart by more than 40 years of war.
The FES cordially invites you to the official award ceremony with Minister of State Reem Alabali-Radovan, Member of the Bundestag and FES General Secretary Dr. Sabine Fandrych, as well as a panel discussion on “What future for Afghanistan? Dialogue, Human Rights, Taliban” with – among others – the Award Winner Shaharzad Akbar, Michael Müller, Member of the Bundestag and Chairman of the Study Commission “Lessons from Afghanistan for Germany´s Comprehensive International Engagement in the Future”, the Commissioner for Indo-Pacific Policy, South Asia and Afghanistan of the Federal Foreign Office, Ambassador Erik Kurzweil and Dr. Almut Wieland-Karimi, International Political Advisor.
We look forward to your participation in the event and the following reception!
Please register until 22 November 2023.
For further information about the Award Winner and the programme please visit www.fes.de/en/menschenrechtspreis.
The event will be interpreted into English and German. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding the barrier-free organization of the event.
In accordance with the information obligation according to Art. 14 GDPR, we point out that photos and video recordings will be made during this event. By participating, you agree that we may use these for reporting and public relations purposes.
Bringing together the work of our offices in the region, we provide you with the latest news on current debates, insightful research and innovative visual outputs on geopolitics, climate and energy, gender justice, trade unions and social-ecological transformation.
In the face of a growing climate crisis, the military industry is promoting "eco-friendly" weapons and technologies, but are these innovations truly... More
Vietnam’s rapid urbanization is bringing both opportunities and challenges. Among the most significant challenges is the preservation of cultural... More
Listening to the voice of youth for a just energy transition has never been this crucial before! In August 2024, the Regional Communications... More
This site uses third-party website tracking technologies to provide and continually improve our services, and to display advertisements according to users' interests. I agree and may revoke or change my consent at any time with effect for the future.
These technologies are required to activate the core functionality of the website.
This is an self hosted web analytics platform.
Data Purposes
This list represents the purposes of the data collection and processing.
Technologies Used
Data Collected
This list represents all (personal) data that is collected by or through the use of this service.
Legal Basis
In the following the required legal basis for the processing of data is listed.
Retention Period
The retention period is the time span the collected data is saved for the processing purposes. The data needs to be deleted as soon as it is no longer needed for the stated processing purposes.
The data will be deleted as soon as they are no longer needed for the processing purposes.
These technologies enable us to analyse the use of the website in order to measure and improve performance.
This is a video player service.
Processing Company
Google Ireland Limited
Google Building Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin, D04 E5W5, Ireland
Location of Processing
European Union
Data Recipients
Data Protection Officer of Processing Company
Below you can find the email address of the data protection officer of the processing company.
https://support.google.com/policies/contact/general_privacy_form
Transfer to Third Countries
This service may forward the collected data to a different country. Please note that this service might transfer the data to a country without the required data protection standards. If the data is transferred to the USA, there is a risk that your data can be processed by US authorities, for control and surveillance measures, possibly without legal remedies. Below you can find a list of countries to which the data is being transferred. For more information regarding safeguards please refer to the website provider’s privacy policy or contact the website provider directly.
Worldwide
Click here to read the privacy policy of the data processor
https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Click here to opt out from this processor across all domains
https://safety.google/privacy/privacy-controls/
Click here to read the cookie policy of the data processor
https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en
Storage Information
Below you can see the longest potential duration for storage on a device, as set when using the cookie method of storage and if there are any other methods used.
This service uses different means of storing information on a user’s device as listed below.
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
This cookie measures your bandwidth to determine whether you get the new player interface or the old.
This cookie increments the views counter on the YouTube video.
This is set on pages with embedded YouTube video.
This is a service for displaying video content.
Vimeo LLC
555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, United States of America
United States of America
Privacy(at)vimeo.com
https://vimeo.com/privacy
https://vimeo.com/cookie_policy
This cookie is used in conjunction with a video player. If the visitor is interrupted while viewing video content, the cookie remembers where to start the video when the visitor reloads the video.
An indicator of if the visitor has ever logged in.
Registers a unique ID that is used by Vimeo.
Saves the user's preferences when playing embedded videos from Vimeo.
Set after a user's first upload.
This is an integrated map service.
Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin 4, Ireland
https://support.google.com/policies/troubleshooter/7575787?hl=en
United States of America,Singapore,Taiwan,Chile
http://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/
