The SCM was founded by the renowned human rights lawyer and journalist Mazen Darwish in 2004. He has been fighting for freedom of expression, hearing of witnesses, conviction of perpetrators and the documentation of continuing human rights violations for many years.
The mayor of Eichstätt and patron of the initiative, Andreas Steppberger, attended the award ceremony along with Prof. Dr. Markus Eham, vice president of the KU, Barbara Loos, chairperson of the KU University Council as well as Gerhard Rott, the representative of the Eichstätt diocese. The laudatory speech was delivered by the journalist, politician and former German Secretary of Culture Professor Michael Naumann.
Unfortunately, Mazen Darwish could not attend for reasons of schedule. There are currently several ongoing lawsuits against six high-ranking intelligence officers of the regime in Damascus in which he is involved as a lawyer. This was the first time in Germany that legal action was brought against a major general of the air force intelligence together with the European Centers for Human and Constitutional Rights (ECCHR). Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank issued an international arrest warrant, which is possible in accordance with the rule of law.
In a video recorded by a member of the working group Shalom in March 2018, the 44-year-old journalist talks about how he was arrested in 2012 and tortured for the following three and a half years in underground cells and also speaks of his wish to continue fighting for legal justice, the release of prisoners and a civil society in Syria after his release. In her speech held in Eichstätt, Yara Bader emphasized that she would not stop fighting for those who were imprisoned and tortured in Syria. As a daughter of a journalist who was held in Syrian prisons for twelve years himself, she knew from the beginning how dangerous it could be to fight for freedom of expression in this country. “I was well aware that the price for standing up for the truth was very high in Syria. It means that you either have to go underground or go to prison, where you might never see the light of day again.”
The award winner expressed her deep gratitude for having being able to continue their work for the Center for Media and Freedom of Expression from their exile in Berlin together with her husband since October 2015. She underlined that Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank was the first prosecutor worldwide to issue a warrant for a high-ranking member of the Syrian regime. She also talked about how it filled her with gratitude to see how Germany kept its borders open for refugees in August 2015.
Mayor Andreas Steppberger assured that this year, the Shalom prize was awarded to an organization and individuals who more than deserved it. Full of respect, he bowed before the courage of the award winners. After his speech, he presented Yara Bader with a bronze dove of peace designed by the Landshut artist Richard Hillinger as a symbol for the UN Human Rights Charter. “This peace dove shall accompany you to honor your commitment for peace, justice and reverence for life”, said Steppberger.
KU Vice President Eham warned in his speech: “Some people seem to be inclined to picture nation states as safely closed-off fortresses of their owners. If you draw the borders of perception and thinking correspondingly narrow, the so-called simple solutions are experiencing a boom.” In contrast, Pope Francis conceived the idea of a Common Home in his “Laudato Si” encyclical in which the dignity of all humans was inalienable. The speaker of the diocese, Gerhard Rott, expressed his respect for the center’s work in the name of the Eichstätt diocese and asked for a donation for the working group and for this year’s award winners.
Former Secretary of Culture, Michael Naumann, who gave the laudatory speech at the event, always stood up for freedom of expression in his years as journalist and publisher. Naumann and his wife have close ties with the laureate couple. They already supported the human rights activists during the campaign for the release of Mazen Darwish and helped Darwish and his wife to start over when they newly arrived in Berlin. In his speech, Naumann reminded of Article 5 of the Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Whoever believed in the universal norms of human rights would not hesitate to declare the Syrian journalist and lawyer Mazen Darwish and the journalist Yara Bader enlightened defenders of the freedom of press who risked their lives for their sturdiness. “Honoring you is in reality an honor for all of us.”
Naumann pointed out, that currently up to 50,000 people were held as political prisoners in Turkey and said this clearly brought the consequences of a deterioration in the justice system to light. “Wherever criticism for the practices of those in power is curtailed with the help of all the means generally available to police states, wherever censorship and terror prevail and are used to serve the retention of power of the elected or unelected leaders, every state will sooner or later slide into suppression, social misery and a lack of freedom – if not even war.”
In her acceptance speech, Yara Bader said she did not want to deny having been afraid of the work at the SCM. This, however, was insignificant compared to the fear of being what she called a “broken human being without dreams and visions”.
All members of the working group “Shalom für Gerechtigkeit und Frieden” at the KU, which was founded in 1981, are volunteers who are students, university employees and citizens of Eichstätt. All donations will be used for projects of the award winners in full. You can still make donations for the SCM until September 2018 to the account of the Katholische Hochschulgemeinde Eichstätt at Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Bayern Mitte eG, IBAN: DE34 7216 0818 0109 6203 20, reference: Shalomaktion 2018.