TEHRAN, Aug. 03 (MNA) – The International Islamic Human Rights Award 2016 was jointly granted to Bahrain’s popular Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim and the co-founder of the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) Arzu Merali.

A ceremony was held on Wednesday morning in the Iranian capital of Tehran to mark commemorate the Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Day during which the third prize if the International Islamic Human Rights Award in 2016 was granted to two foreign representatives.

Sheikh Isa Qassim was awarded the prize given his influential role in ‘peacefully defending the rights of Muslims’ as well as ‘advancing principles of religious democracy’.

The same award also went to Arzu Merali for her persistent efforts to ‘defend Muslims’ rights’ and ‘fight against Islamophobia’.

The ceremony was opened with a speech delivered by Judiciary Head Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani while it was also attended by senior Iranian officials as well as the ambassadors of Islamic countries to Tehran.

The first and second prize of the International Islamic Human Rights Award had previously been granted to a hospital in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Syrian, Yemeni and Iraqi activists in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

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