Tamara Ivanovna Chikunova, nee Petrova, Тамара Ивановна Чикунова (1948 – 31 March 2021) was an Uzbek human rights defender, campaigner against the death penalty and torture, and the founder of "Mothers Against Death Sentence and Torture.
"[1] Born in Tashkent, Chikunova began her campaigning after her son Dmitry was arrested in 1999 and executed in July 2000[2] and she worked against the death penalty, which Uzbekistan abolished in 2008.
She won the Colombe d'Oro and the 2005 Nuremberg International Human Rights Award.
[3] Finally the state of Uzbekistan adopted United Nations civil rights pact and abolished the death penalty.
[4] Chikunova later moved to Italy, from where she campaigned across Europe, particularly against the continuing use of the death penalty in Belarus, the only European state that still conducts executions.