Ahmadjan Madmarov
The annual Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk was established in 2005 to honour the work of HRDs who are courageously making outstanding contributions to the promotion and protection of the human rights of others, often at great personal risk to themselves.
Ahmadjan Madmarov is a regional Chairman of the Independent Human Rights organisation of Uzbekistan (NOPCHU) – one of the few registered human rights organisations in Uzbekistan. Ahmadjan Madmarov received the 2006 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
One of the strategies used to silence human rights defenders is to impose upon many of them excessive prison sentences, although a number of defenders were granted early release in 2017 due, in part, to the political transition following the death of former president Islam Karimov in autumn 2016.
