Afstaða receives Reykjavík City Human Rights Award 2025
Afstaða, an organization focused on improving prison conditions and rehabilitation, received Reykjavík City's 2025 human rights award.
Mayor Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir presented the 2025 Reykjavík City Human Rights Award today to Guðmundur Ingi Þóroddsson, chair of Afstaða, recognizing the organization's invaluable work supporting prisoners and their relatives.
The award was presented at Höfði today, May 16, on Reykjavík City's Human Rights Day, which aims to raise awareness about residents' human rights and the City's Human Rights Policy. The Human Rights Council approved at its meeting that Afstaða, the organization for improved prison conditions and rehabilitation, should receive the award. The award recipient receives 600,000 króna as part of the prize.
The award is given annually to individuals, groups, organizations or institutions that have defended human rights in noteworthy ways.
Powerful advocate for improved prison conditions
The selection committee's reasoning states, among other things:
Afstaða regularly visits all prisons in the country and provides oversight of authorities as a powerful advocate for improved prison conditions in Iceland. Afstaða, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, consists of volunteers, peers and professionals, with the organization emphasizing peer support, rehabilitation and helping individuals reintegrate into society after serving their sentences.
The organization provides education about prisons, the causes of incarceration and its consequences from various perspectives, offers legal advice and participates in public discourse in a professional and responsible manner.
"This has been a two-decade fight for the human rights of prisoners and their families," says Guðmundur Ingi Þóroddsson, chair of Afstaða. The organization has advocated for access to more education and mental health services and strengthening family bonds. "It's important that prisoners' voices are heard in all policy making.”
"Reykjavík City works with everyone who cares about human rights, and it's important to remind ourselves to defend human rights. Reykjavík's Human Rights Council has been active for about 17 years, and we plan to continue contributing. I sincerely congratulate Afstaða on this year's award," said Mayor Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir at the award presentation. She also said it was extremely important to support organizations like Afstaða because although we sometimes think all human rights are respected in Iceland, we regularly receive reminders that we are far from reaching our goals.