A Kashmiri human rights activist, Pervez Imroz, has been awarded this year's prestigious Ludovic Trarieux award, the past recipients of which include Nelson Mandela.

The Human rights Institute of the Bar of Bordeaux, Brussels and the European Bar Human Rights Institute selected Imroz, who heads Jammu and Kashmir [Images] Coalition of Civil Society, on June 2 for the award, after a meeting in Brussels Court's House.

''This year's award will be given to Pervez Imroz, a human rights lawyer and a civil rights activists in Srinagar [Images], who, since, the end of the eighties, has initiated and led campaigns for human rights in the context of grave violations, including killings, tortures and rapes or forced disappearances with impunity,'' read the communique from Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize 2006.

The award was constituted in 1984 by European lawyers in memory of French advocate Ludovic Trarieux, who in 1898 founded French League for the Defense of Human Rights and the Citizens.