International Fair Trial Day and Ebru Timtik Award 2023
On 14 June 2023, around 300 human rights lawyers, judges, reporters, and associations worldwide attended online and in-person the third edition of the International Fair Trial Day and Ebru Timtik Award in Mexico City.
Read our joint statement (PDF 577 KB) – also available to download in Spanish (PDF 535 KB)
Read the report summarising the issues addressed at the conference, focusing on the fair trial abuses and violations occurring in Mexico.
The panellists included eminent lawyers, human rights defenders, victims and academics from Mexico, as well as members of the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.
The panellists addressed issues such as the excessive use of pretrial detention and the constitutional requirement that judges impose mandatory pre-trial detention on some crimes, attacks to judicial independence many courts and judges are facing, the lack of justice in cases of enforced disappearances and torture, as well as the unequal access to justice and the incredible cost for women and indigenous peoples that face impunity.
Ebru Timtik award
Ebru Timtik was a Turkish lawyer who died during a hunger strike while in detention, protesting against a lack of fair trial guarantees in her own case and the cases of others in Turkey.
Every year, on International Fair Trial Day, the Ebru Timtik Award recognises an individual or an organisation who has made a significant contribution towards defending and promoting the right to a fair trial in the country that International Fair Trial Day is focusing on each year.
This year’s recipients of the award were Alicia de los Ríos Merino and Ana Yeli Pérez Garrido.
Meet the 2023 awardees
Alicia de los Ríos Merino
Alicia was nominated for her dedication to achieving justice for the families of disappeared persons in Mexico following her mother’s disappearance in the 1970s.
She was a member of Eureka, the first collective in Mexico for relatives of disappeared persons, and since 2002 has assisted in seven cases of serious human rights violations before the Attorney General's Office of the Republic.
Currently, Alicia works as lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua.
Ana Yeli Pérez Garrido
Ana was nominated for her devotion to the protection and promotion of girls’ and women’s rights in Mexico, a country where gender-based violence results in the violent deaths of 11 women every day.
Over the course of her career, she has fought for the modification of regulatory frameworks and the creation of public policies for the prevention and punishment of violence against women and girls in Mexico.
She is the founder and director of Justicia Pro Persona, an organisation which promotes gender equality and social justice for victims of human rights violations.