Sussex University award for 43 years of human rights activism
Acceptance in solidarity with human rights activists worldwide
London – 20 July 2010
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will receive an Honorary Doctorate for services to human rights, this Friday, 23 July.
The award from Sussex University will be made by the Chancellor,
Sanjeev Bhaskar, at the graduation ceremony at Brighton Dome.
It is in recognition of Mr Tatchell’s 43 years of campaigning for human rights, democracy, global justice and LGBT freedom.
Commenting on his Hon D.Litt (Sussex), Mr Tatchell said:
“I was hesitant about accepting this honour. After all, my contribution
to human rights is very modest. I am a long way from being a brave and
effective campaigner. Many others are much more deserving than me.
“My decision to accept was partly because the initiative for this
honorary doctorate was a grassroots one, from the staff and students. I
am honoured by their recognition of my human rights work.
“I accept this award in solidarity with the many heroic, inspirational
activists who I support in countries like Uganda, Somaliland, Russia,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Baluchistan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Western Sahara,
Iraq, Palestine and West Papua.
“The message I will deliver in my acceptance speech is this: Be
sceptical, question authority, be a rebel. All human progress is the
result of far-sighted people challenging orthodoxy, tradition and
vested interests. Don’t accept the world as it is. Dream about what the
world could be – then help make it happen. In whatever field of
endeavour you work, be a change-maker for the upliftment of humanity.
“I do my bit for social justice, but so do many others. Together,
through our collective efforts, we are helping make a better world – a
world more just and free. .
“My key political inspirations are Mohandas Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst,
Martin Luther King and, to some extent, Malcolm X. I’ve adapted many of
their ideas and methods to the contemporary struggle for human rights –
and invented a few of my own.
“I began campaigning in my home town of Melbourne, Australia, in 1967, aged 15.
“My first campaign was against the death penalty, followed by campaigns
in support of Aboriginal rights and in opposition to conscription and
the Australian and US war against the people of Vietnam.
“In 1969, on realising that I was gay, the struggle for queer freedom became an increasing focus of my activism.
“After moving to London in 1971, I became an activist in the Gay
Liberation Front, organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve
‘poofs’, and protests against police harassment and the medical
classification of homosexuality as an illness.
“I was roughed up and evicted when I disrupted Professor Hans Eysenck’s
1972 lecture which advocated electric shock aversion therapy to ‘cure’
homosexuality.
“The following year, in East Berlin, I was arrested and interrogated by
the secret police – the Stasi – after staging the first gay rights
protest in a communist country,” said Peter Tatchell.
Read more about Peter Tatchell’s four decades of human rights campaigning here: https://www.petertatchell.net/biography/biography2007.htm