22:17, 23 February 2007

Lady-human rights defender from Chechnya nominated to Nobel Prize for Peace

A total of 181 candidates have been nominated to the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, including 46 organizations. Officially, their names are not disclosed; however, it is known that Lydia Yusupova, a human rights defender from Chechnya, is among the nominees, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

Ms. Yusupova is a lawyer from Grozny, an employee Chechen representative office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and an active participant in searching people who have "disappeared" in Chechnya - it was through her efforts the story of disappearance in December 2004 of eight members of Aslan Maskhadov's family became known. In 2004, Lydia Yusupova was awarded in Geneva the international prize of Martin Ennals, in 2005 - the prize of the Norwegian Foundation for Fighting for Human Rights, but in Russia she is very poorly known.