US based Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist Nicholas Opiyo has been awarded the prestigious Human Rights Tulip.
The Human Rights Tulip is an annual prize awarded by the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs to a human rights defender or organisation who promotes and supports human rights in innovative ways.
Opiyo was handed the award and a cash prize of $100,000 by Dutch foreign minister Ben Knapen.
Opiyo beat two other contenders to the prize, namely; Nunca Más, a collective of human rights defenders who protested against injustice and persecution in, Nicaragua, and Russian lawyer Mari Davtyan, who for many years has been working to secure the safety of thousands of women in Russia in her campaign to make domestic violence there a criminal offence again rather than a misdemeanour.
Speaking at the award event on Monday, Minister Knapen praised Opiyo for the work he done in Uganda through his NGO Chapter Four Uganda.
He noted that because of his work, Opiyo has been threatened, spied on and persecuted.
“In December 2020, in the run-up to the elections, he was arrested and detained. Even when Nicholas was in prison his work continued,” said the minister.
“He gave other prisoners legal advice, and so managed to secure the release of 68 people and make them stronger so that they could also make a difference”
Mr Opiyo’s NGO was in August this year suspended indefinitely by the Ugandan NGO Bureau for alleged failure to submit annual returns.
Later on October, Opiyo fled Uganda and announced that he was to temporarily seek refuge in the United States for his own safety.
Speaking yesterday in Amsterdam at a different event, Opiyo revealed that he was to reside in the US for one year and that Chapter Four “will be fine.”
“The fact that my is now suspended perhaps speaks to the good work that we have been doing,” he said.
“We have gone to court because we believe there is no basis for suspension of the organization nor legal basis for the actions of the NGO bureau.”
