Kirity Roy

Mr Roy is 48 years of age and lives in West Bengal, India, and holds a BA. He currently works as a government servant for the local District and Sessions Court while also working voluntarily for MASUM. MASUM is an association of human rights activists of West Bengal working mainly on issues of police torture, health rights, environment, and women’s rights though public meetings, rallies, publishing materials and holding workshops on human rights, and also providing legal aid to victims or their family members. His work at MASUM involves organising cases at the Calcutta High Court against government officials, and he has initiated a series of workshops on human rights. Mr Roy is also the Assistant Secretary of a local community hospital which is run on small donations from the community and aims to fill a gap in the local health system to meet the needs of the community. In addition to these roles, he also writes on human rights issues and cases for local magazines and is presently conducting research on Judicial Inquiry Commissions. Mr Roy and his colleagues are largely unaware of the international system relating to human rights, and wishes to attend the training in order to learn about UN human rights agencies and procedures, and other regional human rights mechanisms and effective human rights organisations. In addition, he hopes that the training will enable him and his colleagues to improve their media and advocacy skills, which he believes are poorly developed.