Raji Sourani
Overview
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
's foremost human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
lawyer. He is the 1991 recipient of the 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was created by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in 1984 to honour individuals around the world who show courage and have made a significant contribution to human rights in their country....
, was an Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Prisoner of Conscience in 1985 and 1988, member of International Commission of Jurists
International Commission of Jurists
The International Commission of Jurists is an international human rights non-governmental organization. The Commission itself is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists , including members of the senior judiciary in Australia, Canada, and South Africa and the former UN High Commissioner for Human...
EXCO and IDAL EXCO, and Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights
International Federation of Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the oldest international human rights organisation worldwide and today brings together 164 member organisations in over 100 countries.FIDH is nonpartisan,...
. He is the founder and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is an independent Palestinian human rights organization based in Gaza City, founded and directed by Raji Sourani...
. Sourani was active in the cases of Palestinians representing deportation, and in monitoring the conditions of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i prisons and detentions.
Quotations
Biography, especially the biography of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
Horace Mann
The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.
Samuel Smiles
To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
Plutarch