Zainab Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja

Zainab Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, mother of a 3 year old daughter, has been involved in human rights since 2001. Zainab got futher involved when the pro-demoncracy movement started on 14 Feb 2011, and since then, she has been very active on the ground by participating in many protests and documenting the human rights violations that have been occurring. Using Twitter, she helped spread what was happening in Bahrain to the world, from protesters being arrested, injured, and even killed. Due relentless activism on the front lines, she has been targeted many times; arrested and imprisoned and has had over a dozen cases against her in court all related to freedom of expression and her participation in protests. To add to that, and in what appeared to be an attempt to stop her activism, she was shot at close range with a tear gas in her thigh, which caused bone fracture and muscle tear that needed several operations. Despite that, and on crutches, she
continued protesting and was arrested again.

She is known for holding one person protests, and usually in places where she tries to affect
change in certain cases like protesting at the hospital demanding that an injured protester be given access to his family. Zainab was nominated for the top 150 fearless women in the wold, chosen for Foreign Police Magazine's top 100 global thinkers, and received the
freedom from Freedom House. She is currently nominated along with two family members for the Nobel Peace Prize.