UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26: The President of the General Assembly, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, announced on Wednesday the winners of the prestigious United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for 2008.

They are former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto (posthumously), Ms Louise Arbour, Mr Ramsey Clark, Dr Carolyn Gomes, Dr Denis Mukwege and Human Rights Watch and Sister Dorothy Stang, also posthumously.

This award is given to individuals and organisations in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Previous recipients have included Nelson Mandela, Amnesty International, Jimmy Carter, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Reverend Dr Martin Luther King.

The recipients were selected by a committee comprising the president of the General Assembly, the president of the Economic and Social Council, the president of the Human Rights Council, the chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women, and the chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council.

Besides Benazir Bhutto, another person given the award posthumously is Dorothy Stang of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who defended the human rights for the poor, landless and indigenous population of the Anapu region of Brazil for 40 years. She was murdered in the same region in 2005.

Other winners are: Ms Louise Arbour, former High Commissioner for Human Rights (2004-2008). Prior to her role as high commissioner, she served as the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and was responsible for the first indictment in history of a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milosevic. She has also served as a judge on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr Ramsey Clark, veteran human rights defender and rule of law advocate, and former attorney-general of the United States, has been a leading voice for peace and justice at the international level for decades. He played a key role in the civil rights and peace movements in his home country, and in promoting fairness and justice around the globe.

Dr Carolyn Gomes is the executive director (since November 2002) and co-founder of Jamaicans for Justice, which defends the human rights of marginalised and vulnerable groups against all forms of violence, supports victims to seek redress through the judicial system and advocates for their protection.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) was established in 1978 and has for the last 30 years documented human rights violations across the globe and advocated for the promotion of human rights and freedoms. Dr Denis Mukwege who co-founded and currently operates the General Referral Hospital of Panzi, in Bukavu, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For more than a decade, he has devoted himself to helping women and girl victims of sexual violence in the province, setting up specialised services for their treatment and training nurses, obstetricians and doctors so that all those who come to the hospital can be helped.