ISLAMABAD: Ambassador of the Netherlands to Pakistan, Henny de Vries, presented the Embassy Human Rights Tulip Award 2022 to lawyer and human rights defender Saqib Jillani for his outstanding work in promoting human rights.
The Embassy Tulip is an annual award of the Dutch government for outstanding and courageous human rights defenders. Through the award, the Netherlands supports human rights defenders to continue their work and share their stories, said a statement issued by the Netherlands Embassy on Thursday.
“Human rights are always about people. The people are protected by human rights. But also, the people who selflessly work to defend, protect, and develop human rights”, said Ambassador de Vries. “Jillani is a prominent example of a courageous human rights defender, working on equal rights for all”.
As a lawyer, Jillani has represented women and civil society organizations in cases related to human rights violations. Since 2018, he has been defending a woman in a long-drawn and heavily contested # MeToo-related defamation case. This litigation has raised fundamental questions relating to women’s right to report sexual harassment without fear or intimidation of defamation proceedings, freedom of speech as well as whether defamation laws can be used as a tool to silence victims of sexual harassment.
Support for human rights defenders is one of the human rights priorities of the Netherlands. “The Netherlands government regards human rights as an indispensable requirement for stability in a rules-based democratic order. That is why we need people like Jillani, who dare to speak out, unconditionally and unequivocally, for human rights”, said Ambassador de Vries.
The award includes a budget for a project to promote human rights, he added.
