25th Anniversary Human Rights
Award Dinner
Friends and Colleagues
|
Michèle Montas
Former Editor-in-Chief, Radio Haiti-Inter
Michèle Montas is an award-winning journalist who has dedicated
her life to securing democracy and freedom in Haiti. Ms. Montas
began reporting for Radio Haiti-Inter in the early 1970s. Working
with her husband, Jean Dominique, she exposed human rights abuses,
political corruption and state-sponsored violence. The couple’s
work resulted in their arrest, harassment and forced exile. Ms.
Montas was one of the Lawyers Committee’s first asylum clients.
Ms. Montas and her husband continued their hard-hitting reporting
and advocacy, and because of it, Mr. Dominique was assassinated
in 2000. Ms. Montas has fought to prove the murder was politically
motivated and bring those accountable to justice. Her refusal to
be silent led to an attempt on her life in December 2002; Ms. Montas’
bodyguard was killed with a bullet intended for her. |
|
Geraldine
Finucane
Human Rights Defender
Geraldine Finucane has fought for human rights and the rule of law
in Northern Ireland since the brutal 1989 murder of her husband, Belfast
solicitor Patrick Finucane. Working closely with the Lawyers Committee
and other rights organizations in Northern Ireland and abroad, Ms.
Finucane has steadily pressed the British government to reveal the
truth surrounding her husband’s assassination. Recently, her efforts,
after 14 years of advocacy, led to official disclosure that U.K. security
forces actively assisted in her husband’s murder. Ms. Finucane continues
to push for an independent public inquiry in the case so that full
truth will be known. |
|
William P. Ford
Founding Partner, Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer & Gleser,
LLP
William P. Ford, a trial lawyer, is the brother of Ita Ford, one
of four American churchwomen murdered by security forces in El Salvador
in 1980. Just days after the murders, the churchwomen’s families
asked the Lawyers Committee to represent them in their quest for
justice. Mr. Ford was a hands-on, active client, accompanying the
Lawyers Committee - in particular Scott Greathead -
on numerous fact-finding missions and meetings with U.S. and Salvadoran
officials. Mr. Ford has been a dedicated advocate - not only
for his sister and the other murdered churchwomen, but for all the
oppressed people of El Salvador.
|
|
James W. Ziglar
Former Commissioner of the I.N.S.
Visiting Professor, George Washington University Law School
Lawyers Committee Board Member
Jim Ziglar served as the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) from August 2001 to December 2002. Prior to this,
he served for three years as Sergeant at Arms of the United States
Senate. Mr. Ziglar also served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior
for Water and Science under President Ronald Reagan. In addition
to his 15 years of service with the federal government, Mr. Ziglar
worked in New York for more than 20 years, as a lawyer and investment
banker. He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from
George Washington University, and in 1972 was a Supreme Court clerk
to Justice Harry Blackmun. He is now a Distinguished Visiting Professor
at George Washington University Law School and a member of the Lawyers
Committee’s Board of Directors. |
