Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

(Born November 26, 1931) is an Argentine activist, community organizer, art painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to Argentina’s last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983), during which he was detained, tortured, and held without trial for 14 months; during that period he also received, among other distinctions, the Pope John XXIII Peace Memorial.
Sculptor, 1950s-1970s; National School of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, art and architecture teacher, 1950s-1960s; Servicio Paz y Justicia (Service for Peace and Justice), co-founder and activist, 1970s–; Permanent Assembly for Human Rights and the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights, co-founder and activist, 1970s.
Pérez Esquivel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, for his efforts in the defense of human rights. Accepting the prize “in the name of the poorest and smallest of my brothers and sisters,”he donated the prize money to charity.He remained active in support of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo despite ongoing harassment by the dictatorship,and later joined causes in support of the indigenous peoples of Argentina and environmentalism and against austerity policies and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.