NEW YORK (Oct. 7, 2026) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and the Thulani Maseko Foundation (TMF) are pleased to announce the recipient of the 2026 Thulani Maseko Justice Prize: Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Thulani Maseko was a remarkable human rights lawyer who pioneered public interest litigation in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Maseko dedicated his career to the peaceful struggle for democracy and to ensuring that dissidents and ordinary citizens facing persecution received independent legal representation.
On Jan. 21, 2023, Maseko was murdered when an assassin fired gunshots through an open window at his home as he watched television with his wife and two children. This came just hours after King Mswati III publicly warned those calling for democratic reform that mercenaries would deal with them. His government then blamed Maseko’s murder on “unknown criminals.”
To honor his memory, HRF and TMF established the Thulani Maseko Justice Prize at the 2023 Oslo Freedom Forum. The prize honors human rights lawyers who advance justice in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.
This year’s laureate, Nasrin Sotoudeh, is a leading Iranian human rights lawyer who has represented numerous prisoners of conscience — including journalists, activists, children, and minorities — advocated against the compulsory hijab law, and denounced the draconian legal system in Iran. For this work, she has been repeatedly targeted and detained by the Iranian regime for more than a decade. In March 2019, Sotoudeh was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on politically motivated charges, including “inciting corruption and prostitution” and “disrupting public order.” She was released in 2021 on medical furlough, but her freedom did not last. In 2023, she was re-arrested after attending the funeral of a teenage girl killed during the Mahsa Amini protests. And most recently, she was arrested in early April 2026, during Iran’s war with Israel and the United States, and held at an undisclosed location. She was released on bail in mid-May, once again on medical leave.
In dictatorships, legal proceedings are mere formalities. Critics of the regime cannot seek independent judicial review or obtain domestic redress. And so, it is lawyers who become their lifeline. They step up in courts packed with judges handpicked by dictators and argue against laws the dictators have carefully crafted to silence criticism. Nasrin Sotoudeh is no different. She is an outstanding example of the resilience it takes for lawyers in authoritarian regimes to represent those who dare to dissent and to uphold the rule of law, even at great personal sacrifice,” HRF President Céline Assaf-Boustani said.
HRF will co-host an award ceremony with The City of The Hague on Oct. 15. If you are interested in attending, please email [email protected].
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.
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