“Out of tragedy, she created hope”
         –Iranian human rights defender, speaking of Roya Boroumand

If you are attending the ASIL Annual Meeting this week:

Come hear Roya Boroumand — courageous, tenacious and inspiring Iranian human rights advocate — who is being honored this year with the Goler T. Butcher Medal. The Butcher Medal, one of the ASIL’s highest honors, is awarded to a distinguished person each year “for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights.”

Through the human rights center she and her sister established after their father – an Iranian lawyer and pro-democracy activist — was assassinated in Paris by agents of the Iranian regime, Roya Boroumand has worked tirelessly to defend human rights in Iran in her extensive advocacy at the United Nations and elsewhere. She and her sister named the organization — the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran — for their father:

“[W]e have to send a message to those who killed that physically eliminating people doesn’t eliminate their ideas. This name is going to come and haunt you.”

Roya Boroumand’s work in support of frontline Iranian human rights defenders has been especially important since the massive protests in Iran that were sparked by the killing of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the Iranian “morality police” for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly.”

This work includes meticulous documentation of the repression of protestors, campaigning for the rights of Iranian human rights lawyers working in what is an extremely difficult environment, and briefing government officials to raise international awareness of violations of international human rights law in Iran.  

Roya Boroumand will engage in conversation on “International Law, Theocracy and the Struggle for Human Rights in Iran” at the ASIL Annual Meeting on:
Thursday, April 4, 2 pm-3 pm