homo homini ceremony

The People in Need Foundation each year presents the Homo Homini award to an individual who has significantly served in the fight for human rights, democracy, and non-violent resolutions to political conflicts.

Gheorghe Briceag

The Board of Directors of People in Need has decided to present the Homo Homini Award for 2004 to Gheorghe Briceag from Moldova. The Award to this former prisoner of the Soviet Gulag for many years was presented for his persistent efforts to defend human rights and for his personal efforts in defending the former prisoners of the Gulag in Moldova. People in Need especially recognizes his persistent resistance to the re-establishment of the Soviet methods and symbols in the territory of the Former Soviet Republics. People in Need would at the same time like to draw attention to the dismal situation in this European country, whose Transdniestr area is, due to the unlawful presence of the Russian army, still occupied by a totalitarian regime of the self-proclaimed "president" Smirnov.

Gheorghe Briceag from Moldova spent ten years in the Gulag and seven years in exile. After being granted his freedom he studied law and today visits the courts to help his fellow citizens in various conflicts with the Moldovan government and its bureaucrats. In addition to this he also tries to assist his former fellow prisoners. In recent years he was able to prevent the city council from renewing a statue of Lenin in the center of Belci. In Belci, a city located to the north of Kishniev, where the pro-Russian oriented Communists have a strong position, Gheorghe Briceag is considered a symbol that helps to influence the convictions of the public in the democratic spirit.

Last year the award was accepted by Nataša Kandic from the Belgrade Humanitarian Law Center for her many years of defending human rights and for her personal courage in uncovering the crimes against humanity committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. In previous years the award was received by three notable defenders of human rights and democratic and religious freedom in Vietnam, Thich Huyen Quang, Thich Quang Do and Nguyen Van Ly, South African Zackie Achmat, who started a campaign through great personal effort to lower the price of AIDS medication in Third World Countries, the leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo and later highest representative of Kosovo Ibrahim Rugova for his non-violent opposition against the Yugoslav regime, Christian Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardinas, and member of the Russian State Duma Sergej Kovaljovov for his mobilization of public opinion against the war in Chechnya.