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Colombian Human Rights Leader Ivan Cepeda Receives the 2007 Roger Baldwin Award

Ivan Cepeda
Ivan Cepeda 
“More than 10 years ago, faced with the murder of my father–a senator from the political party known as the Union Patriotica – I left academia and decided to dedicate my life to the protection and promotion of human rights. I chose to work with the victims of crimes against humanity.”

To read the rest of 2007 winner Ivan Cepeda’s acceptance speech, click here

From June 12 to June
21, 2007, Human Rights First hosted Colombian human rights defender Ivan Cepeda
Castro, the winner of the 2007 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty.  

Motivated into activism by the brutal assassination of his father, Colombian Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, Iván is currently the Director of the National Movement for Victims of State Crimes, an umbrella organization for more than 200 Colombian human rights organizations.

Together with other human rights defenders he has participated
in a process which has documented approximately 40,000 cases of serious human
rights violations committed in Colombia since 1966. Through remarkable perseverance
he has demonstrated that paramilitary groups have committed serious human rights
violations often in complicity with members of the Colombian armed forces.

During the trip, Dr. Cepeda met with international organizations and U.S.
policymakers in Washington and New York and officially accepted the award at
a ceremony held in a private home in Manhattan on June 20, 2007.

Baldwin Selection Notification to Ivan Cepeda
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Press Coverage of the 2007 Baldwin Award

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Awarding of the 2007 Baldwin Award, June 20, 2007

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Symbolic Presentation of Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty by Colombian Human Rights Organizations

Washington, DC reception