Note: The following article was written during the award winner's lifetime. Ivan Zvonimir Cicak died in Zagreb on November 6, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ivan Zvonimir Cicak is a famous human rights activist in Croatia. He is known for speaking out against human rights violations in Croatia, and trying to expose corrupt government officials. He spent years in prison as a result, and his family suffered from harassment as well as being physically attacked. In the time period after the Central and Eastern Europe border changes, Cicak formed the first human rights organization in Croatia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In an interview in 1997, Cicak described how the organization, \u0093The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights,\u0094 believes that government officials should be held accountable for their actions. They monitor human right\u0092s violations and then write up reports detailing the issues they observe. The CHC tries to be as thorough as possible; in 1996 their report was over 700 pages long. They are primarily concerned with the issues that arise when various ethnic groups are resettled in new areas. At the time of the Bruno Kreisky Prize Ceremony, Cicak was working for human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 21st of November, 2009, Cicak became the president of the CHC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n