Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Raji Al-Sourani (1954-) is a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist in the Gaza Strip. Lawyer Raji Sourani has been active in national and political work, and in the defense of human rights. In view of his stances, the Israeli occupation forces banned him from traveling outside the Gaza Strip in 1979, and detained him for three years. In 1986, the Israeli military governor issued an unprecedented military decision banning him from working in the legal field, visiting prisons, meeting detainees, and pleading before the courts. He was subjected to administrative detention for six months in 1988.
In April 1990, he took over the management of the Gaza Center for Rights and Law, which was established in 1985, which publishes many impartial reports and studies, and for which he was awarded the Kennedy Prize for Human Rights, and the award for the best branch of the International Committee of Jurists in 1991.
In April 1995, he founded the Palestinian Center for Human Rights with a group of lawyers and researchers working in human rights, who were dismissed with him, numbering (14 employees), and the center became, through its efforts, at the forefront of civil institutions in the Gaza Strip concerned with human rights.
Lawyer Raji Sourani was chosen in 1997 as a member of the Board of Directors of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo, and was elected Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights in 2000, and a member of the Independent Elections Committee of the International Commission for Human Rights in 2003, and was elected Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), He was chosen as an executive member of the International Commission of Jurists in 2006, in addition to being a founder and expert in many Palestinian, Arab and international institutions concerned with human rights and human rights.
In recognition of his work and efforts, he won many international awards, including: the French Republic Prize for Human Rights in 1995, the Bronokreisky Prize for Distinguished Achievements in the Field of Human Rights in 2002, and the International Service for Human Rights Prize in 2003.
In recognition of his efforts, he was elected in 2011 as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, one of the largest regional human rights organizations. He won the 2013 Alternative Nobel Prize.
In February 2022, he was appointed as a judge at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, based on the recommendation of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to him and three other jurists.
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Achievements and Awards
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