Teesta Setalvad, an Indian civil rights activist and journalist, has been honored with the reputed Honorary Doctorate from the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Teesta Setalvad is the secretary of Citizens for justice and peace (CJP ). CJP is an organization that was formed to fight for justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002.
#UBC announces 2020 honorary degrees, recognizing seventeen individuals for making substantial contributions to society. https://t.co/hpsC8gMnla pic.twitter.com/ukqN5BWRbQ
— University of British Columbia (@UBC) June 22, 2020
CJP is a co-petitioner seeking a criminal trial of Narendra Modi and sixty-two other politicians and government officials for alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Teesta, with her husband Javed Anand, is the co-founder and co-editor of the magazine Communalism Combat which fosters communal harmony by attacking entities propounding communal violence. She is also the General Secretary of People’s Union for Human Rights (PUHR).
She is one of the 10 prominent personalities who have received this honour in 2020. Given the Covid-19 outbreak, she couldn’t be present at the ceremony that was supposed to be held in Vancouver at the end of May. But, the university has now decided to announce the names of the awardees by later tonight and conduct the ceremony on a later date.
Teesta Setalvad is a “civil rights activist, author, and award-winning journalist in India who played a prominent role in the campaign for justice for the victims of the 2002 massacre of thousands of Muslims in the state of Gujarat. As a secularist, she has worked in the field of human rights and law to expose majoritarianism and religious fanaticism, both in India and in other parts of the world, and has been influential on issues related to the rights of women, religious minorities, Indigenous persons and the LGBTQ community.”
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She has earlier won many reputed awards. Few among them are PUCL Journalism for Human Rights Award 1993, Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Media person 1993, and Padma Shri in 2007 awarded for Public Affairs in Maharashtra by the Government of India.
The nine others chosen to award the honorary doctorate, 2020 include Tantoo Cardinal, C.M, a celebrated Canadian actor of Cree and Métis descent, Lawrence Hill, Canada’s most respected authors, and musician Doug Johnson among others
