Professor Kevin Boyle, MRG Chair 2007-2010

It is with deep sadness that MRG records the death of human rights campaigner Kevin Boyle, who died on 25 December.

Kevin served as the Chair of the Council of Minority Rights Group International from 2007 – 2010, having been a member since 2005. It was a time of significant growth and achievement for the organization. In addition to expanding our work in Africa, and launching new conflict prevention programmes, MRG won ground-breaking litigation before the European Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, all under Kevin’s guidance.

‘Kevin Boyle was always a great champion of minority rights,’ said MRG’s Executive Director, Mark Lattimer. ‘As a longstanding advocate for freedom of expression, he had a particular awareness of the value of free speech for oppressed minorities. His passing will be mourned by many across the world who valued his immense contribution to human rights.’

Professor of International Law at the University of Essex, where he twice served as Director of the Human Rights Centre, Kevin had acquired an international reputation in human rights both as a scholar and an activist, playing a major role in the movement for civil rights in Northern Ireland, in the campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey, and in helping build a global movement for free expression.