Nadia Murad – the winner of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 2016

Fourth annual international conference in honour of the laureate of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize with the participation of this year’s three finalists and other eminent guests, including Michael Ignatieff, director of the Central European University, and Ales Bialiatski and Anar Mammadli, the 2013 and 2014 recipients of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, took place in Prague under the title Fences, Walls and Trenches: Freedom of Movement as a Human Right. The theme was be the world migration phenomenon and its influence on the policies of European institutions, the governments of EU member states and public opinion. The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize has been bestowed annually since 2013 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation for extraordinary efforts in the defence of human rights and freedoms around the world. Nadia Murad (Iraq), a young, brave Yazidi woman, who managed to flee ISIS in northern Iraq. Today a human rights activist, she brings the plight of the Yazidi community, in particular the forced sexual enslavement and human trafficking of women and children captured by ISIS, to the forefront of international attention. Michael Zantovsky, director of Václav Havel Library, congratulates Nadia Murad.