Halina Bortnowska wins Professor Zbigniew Hołda Award

Halina Bortnowska, Board member of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, was presented with the Professor Zbigniew Hołda Award.

The Award is bestowed annually by the Professor Zbigniew Hołda Association to individuals for their exceptional commitment to human rights protection and to helping the excluded persons. Professor Hołda, who passed away in 2009, was a lawyer and human rights expert involved, among other things, in adapting the Polish penitentiary system to the European standards.

“In recent weeks a highly debatable topic has been the measures aimed to protect the society from the risk of paedophilic practices. This issue is only getting started and I believe it is my duty to assist those who keep watch so that we won’t start a witch-hunt, a hunt for paedophiles, but carefully watch over the observance of the criminal law (…), so that it is all done fairly and will never become a cover for bad practices and is never used in a [political] game”, said Ms Bortnowska on accepting the award.

Congratulations, Hala!