We are thrilled to hear that, at last, our friend and extraordinary advocate for peace has been recognised in the 2023 New Year’s Honours List with an award of the MBE for services to global peace.

In 1999 Jeremy Gilley desired there be one single day when all countries vowed not to wage war: a worldwide ceasefire and day of non-violence. He established Peace One Day.

On 16 September 2022, the 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini, died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances. The Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran's government, had arrested Amini for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.

Tawakkul Karman is a Yemeni Nobel Laureate, journalist, politician, and human rights activist. She leads the group "Women Journalists Without Chains," which she co-founded in 2005. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that was part of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Ales Viktaravich Bialiatski (born 25 September 1962) is a Belarusian pro-democracy activist and prisoner of conscience known for his work with the Viasna Human Rights Centre. An activist for Belarusian independence and democracy since the early 1980s, Bialiatski is a founding member of Viasna and the Belarusian Popular Front, serving as leader of the latter from 1996 to 1999.

As of 2021, she remained the third most admired woman in the world according to the annual Gallup poll, her 52 appearances on the list meaning she had been in the top ten more than any other woman in the poll's history.