On 28 September 2026, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg will honour Ligia Bolívar with the FAU Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award 2026. With the award, the university recognises her outstanding commitment to human rights. This year’s award ceremony marks the third presentation of the award and, at the same time, its renaming in honour of Dr Rudolf Benario, a former FAU doctoral student who opposed complicity with the Nazi regime and was murdered at Dachau concentration camp in 1933.
Award Ceremony in the Marmorsaal
The ceremonial award presentation will take place from 6:00 p.m. at the Marmorsaal of the Gewerbemuseum in Nuremberg. The event will honour the award recipient while also commemorating Dr Rudolf Benario, whose name the award bears for the first time this year following its renaming. The programme will include laudations by members of FAU CHREN, the official presentation of the award by a representative of FAU, and musical interludes. Dr Shmuel Hirschmann, a relative of Dr Rudolf Benario, will also commemorate Dr Benario as part of the ceremony.
The award ceremony will be followed by a reception, offering an opportunity for personal exchange and conversation with the award recipient, contributors, and guests.
Attendance and Registration
Attendance at the event is by prior registration only. Registration by email to humanrights[at]fau.de is required. Please include your institutional affiliation and your professional or student role when registering.
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- 28Sep18:00 – 20:00Marmorsaal, Gewerbemuseumsplatz 2, 90403 Nürnberg
About the recipient Ligia Bolívar
Ligia Bolívar is a research fellow at the Centre for Human Rights at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in exile in Colombia. She previously served as Director of the UCAB Centre for Human Rights and as Amnesty International’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, she led a project on civil society participation within the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s judicial reform initiative. Over the course of her career, she has also worked as a consultant for several organizations, including the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights. She is the founder of the Venezuelan Program for Education and Action in Human Rights (PROVEA), a prominent non-governmental organization in the region. In recent years, she has spoken out forcefully against authoritarian tendencies in both the current Maduro government in Venezuela and the Trump administration in the United States.
About the Rudolf Benario Human Rights Award 2026
In reaching its decision, the selection panel considered the nominee’s contributions to both academic and activist human rights work. It also took into account the severity of the pressures, precarious conditions, risks, and threats faced by the nominees, as well as whether they had previously received awards or other forms of support. Finally, the panel sought to highlight a particularly urgent global human rights situation.
This year’s award—the third to be presented—also marks the renaming of the award in honour of Dr Rudolf Benario, an FAU doctoral graduate who opposed complicity with the Nazi regime and was murdered in Dachau in 1933.
