Kenya: priest wins human rights award
Source: CISA
A Catholic missionary priest has been honoured for his defence of the rule of law and human rights in Kenya.
Fr Gabriel Dolan, coordinator of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Kitale Diocese, western Kenya, received the Fr Kaiser Award for Human Rights on Saturday.
The outspoken priest has over the years crusaded bravely against the grabbing of public utility land in his diocese and human rights violations elsewhere in the country.
"To be recognized and honoured by the people whom I have been sent to serve as a missionary gives me a joy that cannot be adequately addressed," said Fr Dolan on receiving the award from the country's Vice President Moody Awori.
Fr Dolan became the subject of passionate national discussion last November when media pictures showed him being dramatically arrested by Kitale police as he prepared to hand over a petition on grabbed land to the Vice President, who was visiting the town.
The Fr Kaiser Award was started by the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) in 2003 and named after the Mill Hill Missionary priest Fr John Kaiser of Ngong' Diocese who was killed mysteriously in 2000.
The first recipient was Priscilla Nangurai, the headmistress of the African Inland Church (AIC) Girls Primary School in Kajiado, south of Nairobi, who was awarded for rescuing Masai girls from forced early marriage.