Aminatou Haidar

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Aminatou Haidar : biography

24 July 1966 –

In 2010, 40 members of the European Parliament nominated Haidar for the organization’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. EP member Willy Meyer Pleite denounced a campaign of letters by Morocco protesting the possible awarding of the prize to Haidar. The prize was eventually awarded to Cuban hunger striker Guillermo Fariñas.

Haidar has also been named an honorary citizen or otherwise decorated by numerous Spanish and Italian institutions. In October 2006,she was named "Honorary Citizen" by the town council of Naples for her activity on defending human rights. ASVDH, 3 December 2009 In May 2008, she was awarded a Special Prize by the city council of Castelldefels, Spain. In January 2010, the Italian municipality of Sesto Fiorentino appointed Haidar as "Honorary Citizen" of the village, for her "non-violent struggle for liberty and human rights for her people". Days later, another Italian municipality, Campi Bisenzio, decided by a majority to grant her the "Honorary Citizenship". In February, it was the Tuscan town of Signa who decided to confer Haidar the honorary citizenship. In March, the town of Leganés, Spain, awarded her its Dolores Ibárruri Prize. (Subscription required) On 13 April, the comune of Pontedera gave her honorary citizenship. On 30 July, another ten towns from the Italian province of Lucca gave honorary citizenship to Haidar. One of them, Stazzema, also gave her the "Gold Medal of Resistance". A further 20 Italian towns later declared Aminatou Haidar an "Honorary Citizen". On 27 July 2011, Haidar was made an honorary citizen of the Italian commune of Montespertoli as a "concrete gesture of condemnation of the violence being perpetrated by the Moroccan authorities". The city council of San Fernando de Henares, Spain, awarded her its Jesús Andrés López Gallardo prize. On 10 November 2011, she was awarded the René Cassin Human Rights Prize, given by the Justice department of the Basque Country government; the prize came with an award of 16,550 euros. On 4 March 2013, the Italian city of Florence awarded Haidar the Honorary citizenship of the town. Comune di Firenze, 2 March 2013 Also in March, Haidar won the 13th Bremen Solidarity Award, a prize given to personalities who are distinguished by their compromise with liberty, democracy and human rights, and against colonialism and racism in the world. The prize, given by the regional government of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen with a financial award of 10,000 euros, was given to Haidar for her trajectory in the peaceful struggle for a solution for the Sahrawi conflict, and her defence of the human rights of the Sahrawi people in the occupied territories.

On May 2013, Haidar travelled to Addis Ababa, as she was invited as a guest of honour to the African Union Golden Jubilee.