On 28 March 2026, the International Bureau of FIDH re-elected Vilma Núñez and Khurram Parvez to the positions of Deputy Secretaries-General, roles they had held for the past three years. These two activists from Nicaragua and Kashmir have been deprived of their freedom since 2023. Mr. Parvez is imprisoned, while Ms. Núñez, stripped of her citizenship, is stateless and vulnerable in her own country.
Paris, 21 April 2026. Re-elected unanimously, these two major figures in the struggle for human rights embody, through their own situations, broader dynamics of repression and impunity in their respective countries.
An iconic figure in human rights, Vilma Núñez de Escorcia has been working at the national and regional level for over 60 years. Founder of the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH), a FIDH member for over 30 years, she has served as Deputy Secretary-General since March 2023 and was a finalist for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2023. Arbitrarily stripped of her nationality in February 2023, she has since been deprived of all her fundamental rights — pension, access to healthcare, identity documents — reducing her to a state of statelessness and extreme vulnerability in her own country. Eight years after the beginning of the repression that began in April 2018, Nicaragua remains mired in one of the most serious human rights crises in the region.
For his part, Khurram Parvez, a leading Kashmiri defender and FIDH Deputy Secretary-General since 2023, has been arbitrarily detained without trial for several years. His imprisonment is part of a massive restriction of civic space in Kashmir since 2019.
For Alexis Deswaef, President of FIDH: "The deprivation of rights suffered by Khurram and Vilma are absolute scandals. Human rights defenders must be protected, listened to, and supported, not persecuted. Of course, we are well aware that, under current circumstances, it is impossible for Vilma and Khurram to effectively carry out their mandates. But our intention is to show India and Nicaragua, on the one hand, that we have not forgotten them, and on the other, that they are full members of FIDH. Their governments must take this into account."
FIDH calls for the immediate release of Khurram Parvez, an end to the repression in Nicaragua, and the prompt restoration of the nationality and all rights of Vilma Núñez and all those who have been arbitrarily stripped of them.
