Yafa Foundation and AUB Partner to Honor Nizar Banat
July 1, 2022
On the one-year anniversary of the murder of the Palestinian human rights activist Nizar Banat (1978-2021), AUB and the Yafa Foundation announced the establishment of the Nizar Banat Memorial Scholarship. “Mr. Nizar was a man of great courage who fought for the values he deeply believed in,” explained VP for Advancement Imad B. Baalbaki. “We at AUB are thankful to the Yafa Foundation for establishing a scholarship fund in his memory, and are proud to partner in this initiative.”
Nizar Banat was born in Palestine in 1978. He studied at the University of Jordan before returning to Palestine where he trained as a lawyer. Nizar was well known for his extensive knowledge of Palestinian political and social history and often cited anecdotes about the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970s or the British Mandate of Palestine before 1948. He was a passionate and articulate human rights activist on behalf of the Palestinian people who spoke out loudly and courageously against oppression and for free speech, transparency, and accountability. He was a particularly fierce critic of corruption in the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Banat was killed in Hebron on June 24, 2021 while in the custody of Palestinian Authority security forces. He is survived by his wife and five children.
“Both Nizar Banat and Shireen Abu Akleh perished at the hands of darkness wishing to silence free voices wanting to tell the truth about the plight and suffering of the Palestinian people,” said Hani Qattan, the founder and chairman of the Yafa Foundation and the PACES Charity and a long-time supporter and good friend of AUB. “We must never allow people to die in vain while we look the other way.”
The Nizar Banat Memorial Scholarship is a fully-funded scholarship that covers tuition and related educational and living expenses for an undergraduate Palestinian student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political studies at AUB.