Dr. Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika & Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee

ACKNOWLEDGING HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERSHIP

To further support and advance human rights and freedoms, Freedom’s editors initiated a feature in the U.S. edition in 1987 to acknowledge leaders in human rights. Its Human Rights Leadership Profiles—a regular department of the magazine since—have highlighted the exemplary, and at times, extraordinary, work and accomplishments of many individuals in a wide range of fields.

As a result of the positive reader response to the Human Rights Leadership Profiles, Freedom in 1989 instituted its Human Rights Leadership Awards. Recipients are selected from among those leaders profiled in Freedom and nominated by readers.

Notable awardees in recent years include Irving Sarnoff, founder of Friends of the United Nations, for promoting the spirit and vision of the U.N. Charter and encouraging participation from all sectors of society in the U.N.’s goal of a peaceful, flourishing planet; the Honourable Derek Lee, Canadian Member of Parliament, for his efforts to reduce political and religious strife and improve human rights in the India-Pakistan conflicts; Dr. Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika, Zambian Ambassador to the United States, for her tireless efforts throughout Africa on behalf of women’s and children’s rights, and against war, genocide and corruption; Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed, the Kashmir-born secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, for his international work to bring about greater respect for religious diversity, tolerance and human rights; and Hungarian-born Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York, for his advocacy of human liberty against the influences of psychiatry, and his dedication and outspokenness in reforming the profession and its legion abuses.