Dr Spire Ssentongo receives the 2024 EU Human Rights Defenders Award

Ugandan academic, cartoonist and human rights defender Dr Jimmy Spire Ssentongo has received the 2024 European Union Human Rights Defenders Award.

Dr. Spire is a professor, academic, columnist, portrait painter, author and editorial cartoonist.

He received the EU Human Rights Defenders Award 2024 on Thursday, May 2, 2024.

Presenting the 2024 EU Human Rights Defenders Award, Signe Winding Albjerg, Ambassador of Denmark to Uganda, praised Dr Spire’s “courage and resilience” in opening up “alternative options for active citizen participation”.

He said Dr Spire received the 2024 EU Human Rights Defenders Award for his use of social media to highlight issues of accountability through “exposés”.

“This has earned him significant praise, but also threats for having exposed irregularities in public life. Despite the risks, Dr. Spire has continued to advocate for an improvement in the quality of public service in Uganda,” he noted.

Associate Professor of Ethics and Identity Studies at Uganda Martyrs University, Dr. Spire also teaches Ethics and Research Methods at Makerere University.

He is the face of famous social media displays in which Ugandans pointed out poor services in roads, health, governance and other sectors.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, the EU Ambassador to Uganda, Jan Sadek, congratulated the two finalists for this year’s EU Human Rights Defenders Award, Jesca Ruth Ataa, for her promotion of Karamajong women’s rights and Doreen Namyalo-Kyazze for defending the rights of vulnerable people in prisons.