Ambassador of Conscience Award

The Ambassador of Conscience Award is Amnesty International's most prestigious human rights award. It is given annually to individuals who show exceptional leadership in the fight to protect and promote human rights. The Award aims to promote the work of Amnesty International by association with the life, work and example of its ‘Ambassadors’.

Art for Amnesty, Amnesty International's global artist liaison project, organizes the annual Award Ceremonies drawing on the generosity and inspiration of Artists and the Arts.

Art for Amnesty brings together artists of all disciplines and friends of Amnesty International to support the Organization's work.

The inspiration for the award comes from a poem written for Amnesty International by Irish Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney called "The Republic of Conscience."

: From the Republic of Conscience: : I: : When I landed in the republic of conscience: it was so noiseless when the engines stopped: I could hear a curlew high above the runway: : At immigration, the clerk was an old man: who produced a wallet from his homespun coat: and showed me a photograph of my grandfather: : The woman in customs asked me to declare: the words of our traditional cures and charms: to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye: : No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.: You carried your own burden and very soon: your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared: : II: : Fog is a dreaded omen there, but lightning: spells universal good and parents hang: swaddled infants in trees during thunder storms: : Salt is their precious mineral. And seashells: are held to the ear during births and funerals.: The base of all inks and pigments is seawater: : Their sacred symbol is a stylized boat: The sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,: The hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.: : At their inauguration, public leaders: must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep: to atone for their presumption to hold office: : and to affirm their faith that all life sprang: from salt in tears which the sky-god wept: after he dreamt his solitude was endless: : III: : I came back from that frugal republic: with my two arms the one length, the customs woman: having insisted my allowance was myself: : The old man rose and gazed into my face: and said that was official recognition: that I was now a dual citizen: : He therefore desired me when I got home: to consider myself a representative: and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue: : Their embassies, he said, were everywhere: but operated independently: and no ambassador would ever be relieved

Recipients

* 2006 - Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa

* 2005 - Irish rock band U2 and their manager Paul McGuinness

* 2004 - Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:: - Hilda Morales Trujillo, Guatemalan women's rights activist

* 2003 - Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic

External links

* [http://www.artforamnesty.org/aoc/index.html Official website]