I am raising money for PBI-USA because PBI provided protection for me at a very perilous time in my life. Before coming to the U.S. with PBI's support, I was a human rights lawyer and journalist in my home country of Nepal. In 2004, I was arrested by the army and tortured for almost nine months in a Kathmandu army barrack. After being released, I wrote a book, 258 Dark Days, to share my experience as well as the accounts of others detained alongside me.
In 2007 I founded Lawyers’ Forum for Human Rights (LAFHUR), a pro-bono lawyers’ network, working in the field of transitional justice that provides free legal service to the victims of human rights violations, including women, children and the poor who do not have access to justice. After speaking out about the importance of an effective Truth and Reconciliation Commission and against immunity for war crimes at a UN-sponsored conference in Nepal in the summer of 2011, ongoing death threats and an attempted attack forced me to leave Nepal in July 2011. Since that time, I have spoken at multiple forums across the US, including universities, before Congress, the US Institute for Peace, United Nations, and Kiwanis Club events and have been honored to receive multiple awards and nominations including the Universal Human Rights Award in 2007, the Karmaveer Award in 2009 by the Indian Confederation of NGO's, and in 2011 Peace Brigades International nominated me for the ‘American Bar Association International Lawyer at Risk Human Rights Award’.
I am grateful for the support I have received from PBI. Please consider making a donation to this organization that provides such lifesaving support to human rights defenders around the world.
