THE NEW TRIBALISM: Defending Human Rights in an Age of Ethnic Conflict : THE UNSUNG

RAJA SHEHADEH, Israeli-occupied territories.

Shehadeh is a British-trained lawyer who co-founded Al Haq (Arabic for fairness, right, justice, law and truth), a Palestinian human rights organization that has gained an international reputation for its annual reports on human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Shehadeh is the author of “The Third Way,” a widely read account of life under occupation.

“Peace can only come about after justice.”

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DR. BEKO RANSOME-KUTI, Nigeria.

Ransome-Kuti is president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, a Lagos-based organization founded in 1989, and chairman of the Campaign for Democracy, a coalition of human rights, student and labor groups formed in 1991 to pressure the military government to restore democracy to the country. He has been jailed numerous times for his pro-democracy activities. Nigeria’s military rulers are scheduled to hand over power to a civilian government in August, but many Nigerians doubt that the transition will take place.

“Our nation may be heading for an upheaval of unpredictable, but potentially calamitous, proportions.”

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WEI JINSHENG, China.

Wei gained recognition during the Democracy Wall movement in the late 1970s with his vocal criticisms of the government. He launched Exploration, a magazine that published essays challenging the Beijing regime to move toward democracy. He was arrested in 1979 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for spreading “counterrevolutionary propaganda.” He disappeared for more than a decade into China’s secretive prison system until Asia Watch, a U.S.-based human rights organization, revealed in March of this year that he was being held at a labor camp near the Bo Hai Gulf.

“What is true democracy? It means the right of the people to choose their own representatives (who will) work according to their will and in their interests.”