The Professor Zbigniew Hołda Awards honour people engaged in the human rights movement, protecting the excluded and acting in the public interest. The laureates are nominated by the Professor Zbigniew Hołda Association in Warsaw (www.stowarzyszenieholda.pl ); in 2012 the awards will be granted for the first time.
Members invited to the chapter of the Award are friends and collaborators of prof. Hołda; Chairman prof. Andrzej Rzepliński, President of the Constitutional Tribunal, Małgorzata Bielecka-Hołda, fr. Tomasz Dostatni – member of the Dominican Order, general Paweł Nasiłowski – Prison Service, Danuta Przywara – President of the Helsinki Foundation, prof. Andrzej Zoll – Jagiellonian University, among others.

The chapter will award a person active in the field of respecting law and order and protecting human rights, putting special emphasis on the rights of the imprisoned and detained persons, the right to be judged, the right for procedural guarantees for suspects, defendants and convicts, the right to be defended in a trial, freedom of speech and freedom of artistic creation, equality in the eyes of the law and the right to be protected against discrimination, promotion of rational penal and judiciary politics, including rehabilitation.

The ceremony will be accompanied by the premiere of the performance “Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the group zapaleni.org directed by Joanna Lewicka, performed by prisoners. The play was adapter by Joanna Lewicka and the prisoners.

The President of Lublin Krzysztof Żuk, and Chef Executive of the Prison Service Paweł Nasiłowski took honorary patronage of this event.