Maryam al-Khawaja
| Maryam al-Khawaja | |
|---|---|
Maryam Alkhawaja during BBC interview
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| Born |
Maryam Abdulhadi al-Khawaja June 26, 1987 Syria |
| Residence | Denmark (Self-enforced exile for safety) |
| Education | University of Bahrain BA in English Literature and American Studies |
| Occupation | Human rights defender |
| Years active | 2007–present |
| Parent(s) |
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja Khadija Almousawi |
| Website | http://www.gc4hr.org/ |
 Maryam al-Khawaja's participation in Oslo Freedom forum in May 2011 on YouTube
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Maryam Abdulhadi al-Khawaja (Arabic: مريم عبد الهادي الخواجة, b. 26 June 1987) is a Bahraini human rights activist. She is the daughter of the Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and co-director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR).
al-Khawaja was born in Syria to mother, Khadija Almousawi, and Bahraini-Danish human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. Her father was who had been banned from Bahrain since the mid-1980s. At the age of two her family was able to get political asylum in Denmark. They lived there until 2001, when they were allowed re-entry into Bahrain.
After graduating from the University of Bahrain in 2009, al-Khawaja spent a year in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship at Brown University. When she returned to Bahrain in mid-2010, however, she was unable to find work in public relations or education due to her father's reputation as a government critic. Instead she joined the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, co-founded by her father, where she headed the foreign relations office and became vice president, serving as acting president during BCHR's president, Nabeel Rajab periods of detention.
On 22 June 2011, al-Khawaja’s father was sentenced to life imprisonment in a military court on the charge of "organizing and managing a terrorist organization" for his role in the pro-democracy 2011-2012 Bahraini uprising.
al-Khawaja was active in participating in protests and volunteering for human rights organizations since she was a young teenager. She also worked as a fixer and translator for journalists who came to Bahrain to report on the situation there. In 2006, al-Khawaja was part of the delegation that went to the UN building in New York City and met with the Secretary-General’s assistant to hand over the mass petition of demanding that the Prime Minister resign, due to his human rights violations. In 2008, al-Khawaja was invited by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to testify at US Congress about religious freedom in Bahrain. The government led a smear campaign in the media against the group of activists that spoke at this session including al-Khawaja, and their case was adopted by organizations such as Frontline, OMCT and FIDH.
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