The Moore Prize 

2022

The Moore Prize 2022 Winner for Writing on Human Rights 

Nury Turkel -  No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs

Nury Turkel was born in a ‘re-education’ camp in China at the height of the Cultural Revolution. He spent the first several months of his life in captivity with his mother, who was beaten and starved while pregnant with him, whilst his father served a penal sentence in an agricultural labour camp. Following this traumatic start – and not without a heavy dose of good fortune – he was later able to travel to the US for his undergraduate studies in 1995 and was granted asylum in the country in 1998 where, as a lawyer, he is now a tireless and renowned activist for the plight of his people.

Part memoir, part call-to-action, No Escape will be the first major book to tell the story of the Chinese government’s terrible oppression of the Uyghur people from the inside, detailing the labour camps, ethnic and religious oppression, forced sterilisation of women and the surveillance tech that have made Xinjiang – in the words of one Uyghur who managed to flee – ‘a police surveillance state unlike any the world has ever known’.

The Moore Prize 2022 Short List

Mondiant Dogon with Jenna Krajeski – Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds: A Refugee’s Search for Home

A stunning and heartbreaking lens on the global refugee crisis, from a man who faced the very worst of humanity and survived to advocate for displaced people around the world

One day when Mondiant Dogon, a Bagogwe Tutsi born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was only three years old, his father’s lifelong friend, a Hutu man, came to their home with a machete in his hand and warned the family they were to be killed within hours. Dogon’s family fled into the forest, initiating a long and dangerous journey into Rwanda. They made their way to the first of several UN tent cities in which they would spend decades. But their search for a safe haven had just begun.

Rarely do refugees get to tell their own stories. We see them only for a moment, if at all, in flight: Syrians winding through the desert; children searching a Greek shore for their parents; families gathered at the southern border of the United States. But through his writing, Dogon took control of his own narrative and spoke up for forever refugees everywhere.

Sally Hayden – My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route

In August 2018, Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help,’ it read. ‘We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.’ More messages followed from more refugees. They told stories of enslavement and trafficking, torture and murder, tuberculosis and sexual abuse. And they revealed something else: that they were all incarcerated as a direct result of European policy.

From there began a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the shocking experiences of refugees seeking sanctuary, but it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU’s bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn’t it being widely reported?

At its heart, this is a book about people who have made unimaginable choices, risking everything to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear.

Dr Denis Mukwege – The Power of Women: A Journey of Hope and Healing 

Nobel laureate, world-renowned doctor and human rights activist, Dr Mukwege has dedicated his life to caring for victims of sexual violence. Over the past two decades living and working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he has stood up to soldiers and warlords and survived multiple assassination attempts, never swaying from his mission.

In this book, Dr Mukwege interweaves his own story with the experiences of the women he has treated, the people he has worked with, and survivors of sexual violence whom he has met during his years of advocating for women's rights on the international stage.

The Power of Women is a rallying cry to rid our societies of violence against women. It challenges us to think about our own experiences and how we all have a part to play in bringing about change.

Barbara F. Walter - How Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them

While violence has declined worldwide, civil wars have increased. This is a new phenomenon. With the exception of a handful of cases - the American and English civil wars, the French Revolution - historically it has been rare for people to organise and fight their governments.

This has changed. Since 1946, over 250 armed conflicts have broken out around the world, a number that continues to rise. Major civil wars are now being fought in countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya. Smaller civil wars are being fought in Ukraine, India, and Malaysia. Even countries we thought could never experience another civil war - such as the USA, Sweden and Ireland - are showing signs of unrest.

In How Civil Wars Start, acclaimed expert Barbara F. Walter, who has advised on political violence everywhere from the CIA to the U.S. Senate to the United Nations, explains the rise of civil war and the conditions that create it. As democracies across the world backslide and citizens become more polarised, civil wars will become even more widespread and last longer than they have in the past. This urgent and important book shows us a path back toward peace.

2022 Judges

Jury Chair: Bidisha Mamata

Bidisha Mamata is a broadcaster, journalist and multimedia artist. She specialises in international human rights, social justice and the arts and offers political analysis, arts critique and cultural diplomacy tying these interests together. She writes for the main UK broadsheets and presents and commentates heavily for BBC TV and radio, ITN, CNN, ViacomCBS and Sky News. Her fifth book,  Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London (2015), is based on her outreach work in UK prisons, refugee charities and detention centres. Her first short film, An Impossible Poison, received its London premier in 2018 and has been highly acclaimed and selected for numerous international film festivals. Her latest film series, Aurora, launched in 2020 and is ongoing. She is currently presenting the Hello Happiness audio series for Wellcome Collection, all about mental and physical health. 

Jurist: Avril Benoît 

Avril Benoît is the executive director of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in the US, based in New York City. She has worked with the international medical humanitarian organization since 2006 in various operational management and executive leadership roles, most recently as the director of communications and development at MSF’s operational centre in Geneva. Throughout her career with MSF, Avril has contributed to major movement-wide initiatives, including the global mobilization to end attacks on hospitals and health workers. She has worked as a country director and project coordinator for MSF, leading operations to provide aid to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Mauritania, South Sudan, and South Africa. Prior to joining MS, Avril had a distinguished 20-year career as an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in Canada.

Jurist: Befekadu Hailu Techane

Befekadu Hailu Techane is a civil society leader, author and an advocate for the respect of human rights democracy in Ethiopia. He is co-founder and Executive Director at the Centre for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), an Ethiopian civil society organisation. He was a co-founder of the renowned Zone 9 Blogging and Activism Collective, served as an editor and opinion writer for many local print media outlets and is a weekly contributor to Deutsche Welle (Amharic Service).  He was imprisoned in Ethiopia for his human rights activism in 2014 and again in 2016 but acquitted both times. Befekadu’s work has been recognised through several human rights awards including a PEN Pinter Prize for International Writer of Courage, a Sakharov Fellowship from the European Parliament and a Freedom Fellowship from the Human Rights Foundation.