He was born in Gaza on December 28, 1953. He received his law degree in 1977 from the Alexandria University in Egypt and opened his law firm shortly after his graduation. He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York 1991/2.
He has defended the Palestinian civilian victims of the Israeli occupation forces, including twelve-year old children who were tried in military courts in the Israeli occupied Gaza Strip. In his words: "Gaza was the other side of the moon which the Israeli occupation did not want anybody to know about where torture, extra judicial killings, deportation, expulsion, house demolishing, land confiscation, willful killing, siege, blockade, and collective punishment" reigned.
As a result of his commitment to defending human rights since the beginning of his career, he was banned from traveling abroad from 1977 to 1990 and his house along with his office were raided frequently. He was first time arrested in 1979, serving a three-year prison sentence. He was subjected to torture during his incarceration. He was arrested five more times between 1985 and 1988 and barred from visiting prisoners as well as representing prisoners or monitoring trials. Amnesty International declared him a Prisoner of Conscience twice in 1985 and 1988.
Since 1993 he has taken on human rights-violation cases regardless of the defendant's identity. He criticized the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993 on the grounds that the agreement lacked assurances on the protection of human rights; it doesn't mention the ending of the occupation, or self determination, accountability or international law or human rights. Soon after that he also denounced the formation of the State Security Courts founded by the Palestine National Authority (PNA). His position led to his arrest by the PNA in 1995; he had been arrested six times all together by Israel and the PNA throughout his career.
In April 1995, he founded the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and served as its director. The PCHR documented the human rights violations on the ground; provided pro bono legal assistance to those whose rights were violated; and conducted educational work in Gaza. To date, the independent legal field research conducted by PCHR provides a tremendous reference material for international law and human rights organizations and specialized UN Agencies, International Criminal Court, solidarity groups and diplomatic community.
He also was among the leading attorneys that applied universal jurisdiction in international criminal law to Palestinian cases and trials. He and his European, American colleagues brought lawsuits against the Israeli authorities in the Swiss, UK, Dutch, Spanish and American courts. Lasting well over a decade, this relentless legal pursuit resulted in the recognition of International Criminal Court's jurisdiction over the Palestinian Occupied Territories in January 2021.
From 2011 to 2018, he served as President of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. In that capacity, he has supported human rights defenders in Libya, Syria, and Yemen through training programs. Since the early 1980s, he has maintained close relations with international and Israeli lawyers and human rights advocates and facilitated their missions to visit Gaza. He cooperated with them to produce many joint reports and joint universal jurisdiction cases. From 2015 onwards, he has led a legal team representing the Palestinians victims who have been subjected to human rights violations by the Israeli occupation forces.
He was strongly advised to leave Gaza for the role he played in talking to the media about the genocide and ethnic cleansing from the early days. In October 2023, his house was bombed after two days of exclusive interview with Democracy Now. He and his family barely survived the Israeli air strike that destroyed their home. Nevertheless, he joined the legal team that brought South Africa's genocide case against Israel before International Court of Justice on 11 January 2024. He has not given up his legal pursuit despite the countless times that his house and office had been raided, destroyed.
This half century-long struggle has been recognized many times with leading honors and awards in human rights.
For his continuous work under conditions that render the legal documentation of human rights violations and the pursuit of accountability nearly impossible; for speaking truth to power without ever bowing to threats, pressures or sanctions; for holding to the rule of law, justice and dignity for victims as the guiding principles of his professional and moral path; and for demonstrating to us that the law can still conquer impunity, the 2026 International Hrant Dink Award laureate is Raji Sourani.
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a profound honor and humbled to receive the International Hrant Dink Award.
I accept this award with deep gratitude and appreciation, but also with a strong sense of responsibility. Hrant Dink's life and work remind us that speaking truth to power and defending human dignity can come at an enormous personal cost, including our lives. His unwavering courage and determination continues to inspire all those who believe in justice, dignity of man and human rights around the world.
This recognition comes at an extraordinarily painful political and human moment for me and the Palestinian people, and all those who believe in rule of law, accountability and justice across the globe.
For nearly three years, Palestinians in Gaza have endured devastation on an unprecedented scale: the killing and injury of tens of thousands of civilians, the destruction of homes and entire neighborhoods, forced displacement, starvation, attacks on hospitals, medical workers, journalists, humanitarian workers and the foundations of civilian life. UNRWA, which is the main lifeline for humanitarian aid in Gaza, has been systematically targeted since day one. Moreover, thousands of Palestinians have been illegally detained, forcibly disappeared and subjected to unprecedented torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other forms of sexual violence.
While a so-called ceasefire has been announced a year ago, the genocide in Gaza remains ongoing and institutionalized. Over 2 million Palestinians are besieged and enclaved in less than 30% of Gaza's territory facing a very difficult humanitarian reality and denied the most basic rights while the Israeli occupation criminal war machine continues to kill Palestinians on a daily basis. Just recently, Israel's Defence Minister has reaffirmed Israel's intention to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip from Palestinians. He said "There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration." He added that pending the green light from the United States, the Israeli government "is organised and prepared to get them out - by sea, by air, by every way possible."
In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, settler attacks have intensified on an unprecedented scale as Israel continues its de facto and de jure annexation of what remains of Palestinian territory.
Yet these atrocities and crimes did not begin three years ago. They are rooted in decades of illegal belligerent occupation, dispossession, fragmentation, denial of fundamental rights, and impunity.
Through its settler colonial and apartheid regime, Israel has imposed a system of suppression, oppression, and racial discrimination that aims to deny Palestinians as a national group their legitimate rights, including their right to self-determination and the right to return to the towns and villages they were forcibly displaced from in 1948.
Unfortunately, the international community, despite the overwhelming evidence, whether it's the social media videos or the UN organisations, or international human rights organizations, has failed to act to uphold the minimum standards of international law when it came to Palestine and has left the Israeli criminal war machine, backed by the United States and major European governments, to tear apart the bodies of Palestinian men, women, and children unabated and without any consequences. The genocide has demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of governments and the global order, almost having Gaza as the graveyard of international law.
Not only that, but anyone that has dared to seek accountability for these crimes has been punished by the suspected criminals, which is Kafkaesque.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), in which I work as the General Director, has been sanctioned by the United States, along with two other Palestinian human rights organizations for cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israeli officials. Moreover, nine of the eighteen judges of the Court, including the Court's President Judge Tomoko Akane, both of the two Deputy Prosecutors, the former Prosecutor, and the head of the Investigation Team for Palestine, have been sanctioned by the United States, as well as Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine.
Despite this dark reality, we have continued to work under unimaginable circumstances from our belief that one day, sooner or later, this reality will change and justice will be achieved. Our colleagues have continued to document violations and crimes on the ground while they were themselves targeted, displaced, starving, losing their homes, their loved ones, and in some cases their lives. They have continued collecting testimonies, preserving evidence, building legal files, speaking to international institutions and demanding accountability, even as the institutions of justice and principles of international law themselves have come under unprecedented attack.
During this ongoing genocide, we have lost three young and very promising dear colleagues who were working tirelessly around the clock: Dana Yaghi, Nour Abo Al Nour and Ehab Faisal. Dana Yaghi, lawyer in the Women's Rights Unit, was killed along with 40 members of her family by an Israeli airstrike that targeted the house where they had sought refuge after being displaced in Dei Al Balah. Nour Abo Al Nour, also a young lawyer in the same unit, was killed along with seven of her family members, including her 2-year-old daughter, by an Israeli airstrike that targeted their home in Rafah. Ehab Faisal, my personal administrative assistant, was also killed along with his wife and two beautiful daughters in an airstrike while they were sleeping in Gaza city.
This award therefore belongs not to one individual. It belongs to all my colleagues in the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and other Palestinian civil society organizations who have demonstrated unwavering dedication and commitment in the face of Israel's genocide, who made it one of the most well documented conflicts in history, and brought it to the stage of the most important courts on earth, the ICC and ICJ.
It belongs to the victims and survivors who have trusted and cooperated with us with their testimonies, often recounting the most painful moments of their lives because they still believe that truth matters and that one day justice will be achieved and prevail.
It belongs to all segments of the Palestinian society, including journalists, doctors, humanitarian workers, and rescue teams, who refused to allow the pain and suffering of their people to be erased or normalized.
And it belongs to every person, in Palestine and beyond, who continues to insist that international law must protect everyone equally regardless of their nationality, color, or race.
Thank you to the International Hrant Dink Award jury and to the Hrant Dink Foundation for this recognition.
We will continue our work until accountability is no longer an aspiration; until the removal of this unlawful criminal occupation and until Palestinians achieve their legitimate rights.
We will never ever lose hope or strategic optimism, we have no right to give up, we will keep the fight for justice, rule of law, and dignity of Man till the last breath.
We know we are not alone, we are supported by all free committed people across the globe who support us in our just struggle for the shared values.
We know we are on the right side of history and one day we shall overcome.
Thank you.