Muhannad Al-Hassani

Reporting from Geneva (Switzerland), Nathaniel Daudrich, reveals the recipient of this year's Martin Ennals Award - the Nobel prize of the human rights world - the Syrian lawyer Muhannad Al-Hassani.

 

Al-Hassani is unlikely to attend the presentation in person - he is currently incarcerated in Syria and subject to a travel ban - but the award sheds new light on the growing limitations to freedom of expression inside Syria, especially among journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders.

 

On 06 April 2010, a protest outside the main parliament buildings in Downtown Cairo turned into a scuffle, with almost 100 activists reported arrested and journalists harrassed.

 

Often scorned as a hopeless movement for constitutional change in a country under a state of emergency since 1981, Nathaniel Daudrich uses his inaugural human rights piece to ask who are the parties involved and why does unrest mark 06 April in the Egyptian calendar?

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