Khaled el-Balshy an Egyptian rights campaigner has won the Nelson Mandela award for individual activism for 2017
- He will receive the Individual Activist award of the Nelson Mandela - Graca Machel Innovation Awards on Dec. 7 in Fiji
- El-Balshy tried to shine a light on violations by the Egyptian government and share these with the world.
- He has boldly pursued the cause of free speech, despite facing personal judicial and online harassment
- The organization, which operates in 145 countries around the world, began granting the awards named after Nelson Mandela and his wife Graça Machel in 2005, for those “who have demonstrated remarkable courage and commitment in the pursuit of social change.”
- El-Balshy has been regularly detained, jailed, and prosecuted in Egypt under the rule of general -turned-president Abdel Fatah el-Sissi, who led the 2013 military overthrow of Egypt's first freely elected civilian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
- The country was ranked 161 out of 180 countries in the 2017 Press Freedom Index, according to the annual ranking of Reporters Without Borders, a freedom of expression advocacy group.
