Parvez Imroz is an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist in

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...

, the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He is founder and President of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) that works to build local alliances between Kashmiri civil society groups, runs advocacy campaigns, documents rights violations and provides legal assistance to victims. He is also convener of ''International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir'' alongside

Angana Chatterji Angana P. Chatterji (born November 1966) is an Indian anthropologist, activist, and feminist historian, whose research is closely related to her advocacy work and focuses mainly on India. She co-founded the International People's Tribunal on H ...

Gautam Navlakha Gautam Navlakha () is an Indian self-proclaimed human rights activist and journalist. He has written on left-wing extremism and is a critic of army and state atrocities in Kashmir. He is a member of People's Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi ...

and Zaheer-Ud-Din. He has filed thousands of

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

actions on behalf of families who claimed their relatives had vanished while in the custody of the Indian security forces. In 2008, along with his team, he first discovered the huge number of mass graves in J&K. Reportedly his group exposed more than 7,000 mass graves in the region over the years, on which no action has yet been taken by the government.

Awards

He was awarded the eleventh

Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize The Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, or Ludovic Trarieux Award, is an international human rights award given annually to a lawyer for contributions to the defence of human rights. History The Prize was inaugurated in Bordeaux i ...

by Human Rights Institute of The Bar of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France and the European Bar Human Rights Institute (IDHAE) in 2006, that was first given to

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...

. In 2017, he was awarded the

Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize The Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize (''Raftoprisen'') is a human rights award established in the memory of the Norwegian human rights activist, Thorolf Rafto. Organization The prize is awarded annually by the Rafto Foundation for Human R ...

for Human Rights along with

Parveena Ahanger Parveena Ahangar (born in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir) is the Founder and Chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Jammu and Kashmir. She won the Rafto Prize for Human Rights in 2017 for her “protests against ...

Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS)

Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) is a group of organizations and individuals in Jammu and Kashmir whose main focus of area is

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 ...

in Jammu and Kashmir. It was founded on 20 June 2000. The society consists of individuals like Parvez Imroz (founder and President) and

Khurram Parvez Khurram Parvez is a Kashmiri human rights activist. He is the Chairperson of Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and Program Coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). Khurram is a recipient of the ...

, and organisations like

Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

(APDP), Public Commission on Human Rights (PCHR) and the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK). Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society is a regular opinion leader and their statements are featured in various articles related to issues in Jammu and Kashmir. JKCCS also comes out with various reports, and conducts documentation and legal proceedings related to human rights issues in Jammu and Kashmir. Members of JKCCS have won various domestic and international awards for human rights work done in Jammu and Kashmir such as Khurram Parvez who won the

Reebok Human Rights Award The Reebok Human Rights Award honoured activists under the age of thirty who fought for human rights through non-violent means. Each year, the award was given to four or five individuals. Each received a grant of US $50,000 that was to be used to ...

in 2006, and other members of JKCCS are well known human rights defenders such as Natasha Rather, a Front Line Defender, who also co-authored the book ' Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?'. The organization was awarded the 23rd Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Prize for work on protection of human rights and promoting justice and peace.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Imroz Indian human rights activists Living people Kashmiri people Kashmiri human rights activists 20th-century Indian lawyers People from Srinagar Activists from Jammu and Kashmir Year of birth missing (living people)

Awards

Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS)

See also

References