Nicholas Opiyo (born November 15, 1980) is a Ugandan human rights lawyer and campaigner for
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
and
political freedoms
Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...
. He is the executive director of Chapter Four Uganda.
Background and education
Opiyo grew up in
Gulu
Gulu is a city in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is the commercial and administrative centre of Gulu District.
The coordinates of the city of Gulu are 2°46'54.0"N 32°17'57.0"E. The distance from Gulu to Kampala, Uganda's capital and large ...
northern Uganda at the height of the conflict between the government of Uganda and the Lord's resistance army of
Joseph Kony
Joseph Rao Kony (likely born 1961) is a Ugandan militant who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist organization, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and various ...
. Many of his friends and family members including his sister were abducted by the rebels to serve as slaves, soldiers and labourers. His sister spent 8 years in the hands of the rebels before she escaped.
Opiyo once confessed he feared sleeping home and slept on streets because they seemed safer. All these experiences shaped his passion for defending human rights.
He studied his bachelor's of law (LLB) from
Uganda Christian University
Uganda Christian University (UCU) is a private church-founded university administered by the Church of Uganda. It was the first private University in Uganda to be awarded a charter by the Government of Uganda.
Location
UCU's main campus, with a ...
in 2004 and a post graduate diploma in legal practice from
Law Development Center
The Law Development Centre (LDC) is an educational institution in Uganda for higher learning that offers various legal courses ranging from one month to one year.
Overview
The LDC is the only institution in Uganda that offers the Bar Course leadi ...
Kampala in 2005.
Career
Opiyo focuses his work on political and civil rights especially; electoral law, restrictions of freedom of assembly, clampdown on freedom of speech and freedom of press.
He is also known for representing and availing legal aid to
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
people in Uganda.
In 2013, Opiyo founded Chapter four Uganda to offer legal aid and advance civil rights in Uganda.
Opiyo was a member of the team of experts to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
special rapporteur on the rights to peaceful assembly and Association until 2017.
He is also the board chairman of action aid Uganda, a member of the
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
advisory board benetech, a silicon valley human rights and tech company based in palo Alto in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and African middle eastern leadership project (AMEL), a
Washington DC
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
based think and action group.
Awards
In 2017, Opiyo received the German Africa prize and in 2015 had received the Voices for justice award from
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
. Also in 2015, he was a recipient of the Alison Des forges Award for extraordinary activism. He also received the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
parliament Sakharou fellows prize in 2016.
Opiyo won the 2021 Human rights Tulip prize that was started by the Dutch government in 2008 to support human rights defenders to boost visibility of their work and inspire other activists.
See also
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Opiyo, Nicholas
Living people
21st-century Ugandan lawyers
Uganda Christian University alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)