Maryam al-Khawaja

Abdulhadi al - Khawaja Maryam ( مريم عبد الهادي الخواجة, DMG Maryam ʿ Abd al - Hādī al - Ḫawāǧa; born June 26, 1987 in Damascus, Syria ) is a Bahraini human rights activist. She is a daughter of Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al - Khawaja; Khadija Almousawi is her mother. She is Vice President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights; since the arrest of Nabeel Rajab, it acts as President.

Life

Al- Khawaja was born in Syria, where her father had been banished the mid-1980s. When she was two years old, her family was able to obtain political asylum in Denmark. They lived there until 2001 when they were allowed to return to Bahrain.

After her graduation from the University of Bahrain in 2009 (BA in English Literature and American Studies ) al - Khawaja spent with the help of a Fulbright scholarship for a year at Brown University. When she returned to Bahrain in mid-2010, it did not succeed to find a job (which she in the fields of public relations or education sought ). Because her father is known as a critic of the government and was

They eventually became active in the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, its founders, her father counts. There she took over the management of the Office for Foreign Relations.

On 14 February 2011 protests and demonstrations began in Bahrain ( part of the Arab Spring ). On June 22, 2011, her father was sentenced by a military court to life imprisonment for activities related to these protests ( the judgment speaks of " organizing and operating a terrorist organization ").

On March 4, 2013 it was announced that she is one of 209 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.