Five human rights defenders from five regions have received the 2026 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, recognising their work amid threats, imprisonment and other forms of retaliation for challenging rights violations.
The recipients are Angolan democracy activist Laurinda Manuel Gouveia, Brazilian trans Black quilombola leader Adda Vyctoria Caetano, jailed Indian student activist Umar Khalid, Serbian feminist and peacebuilder Ljiljana Nešić, and Iranian Kurdish anti-death penalty campaigner Ahmadreza Haeri, who was released from prison in September.
The awards were presented at a ceremony at Trinity College Dublin attended by foreign diplomats, representatives of the Irish government and Department of Foreign Affairs, civil society groups and media organisations. Front Line Defenders, an international organisation supporting human rights defenders at risk, said the five had continued their work despite threats, arbitrary detention, torture, judicial harassment and smear campaigns.
“There is a powerful wave of people who believe there is a better path despite the worrying state of affairs for human rights defenders (HRDs) around the world today; a wave of those who believe in a brighter future,” said Alan Glasgow, chief executive of Front Line Defenders. “This year’s laureates are emblematic of this wave of positive change.”
The annual award was established in 2005 to recognise people making outstanding contributions to protecting the human rights of others, often at considerable personal risk. The organisation said this year’s recipients were selected from hundreds of candidates nominated through a secure, public process conducted between November 2025 and January 2026. Winners receive support for their physical and digital security, advocacy, public visibility and wellbeing.
In Angola, Gouveia has spent more than a decade promoting women’s rights, fundamental freedoms and participatory democracy. She co-founded the Balumukenu Association in 2021 to train young people, document rights violations and encourage civic participation. Her School of Human Rights and Community Leadership has helped establish at least four youth movements. Arrested several times, she once spent 73 hours in a police cell with her seven-month-old baby. She has also helped secure the release of four activists and is campaigning for Inácio Pessela, who was paralysed after being shot by police at the age of 14 during the 2025 taxi drivers’ strike.
Caetano, from Brazil’s northeastern state of Ceará, is an artist, cultural producer and leader of the Quilombo Conceição dos Caetanos community. As national coordinator of the LGBTQIAPN+ Collective within the National Coordination of Articulation of Rural Black Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), she works to strengthen the political participation and visibility of LGBTQIAPN+ people within the quilombola movement. She also serves in CONAQ’s National Collective of Quilombola Women. Her work has drawn threats, intimidation and online attacks.
In India, Khalid has been imprisoned for six years over his leadership in a peaceful civil movement opposing amendments to citizenship laws that Front Line Defenders describes as unconstitutional and discriminatory towards Muslims. The organisation said international human rights bodies, including the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, had highlighted the illegality of his arrest and detention. Khalid was unable to travel to Dublin to receive the award because he remains in jail.
Nešić, president of Serbia’s Women For Peace organisation, has worked for more than 33 years to advance women’s rights, gender equality and access to justice, particularly for women in rural and marginalised communities in southern Serbia. She has faced detention, threats, defamation and hacking. In December 2025, her home was broken into and ransacked in what was believed to be an act of intimidation.
Haeri, an Iranian Kurdish human rights defender, was released on 9 September 2026 after more than three and a half years in prison. He helped initiate the “No to Death Penalty on Tuesdays” campaign, a prisoner-led movement involving weekly hunger strikes across dozens of Iranian prisons. Front Line Defenders cited Amnesty International figures showing that at least 2,159 people were executed in Iran in 2025.
