Brussels, 01/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The young activist from Pakistan for girls' education, Malala Yousafazai; Edward Snowden from the USA, who made the NSA surveillance public; and the political prisoners from Belarus, Ales Bialatski, Eduard Lobau and Mykola Statkevich, were nominated (behind closed doors) as finalists for the Sakharov Prize 2013 by the European Parliament's foreign affairs and development committees and by its sub-committee for human rights, on 30 September.
The winner will be announced by the Parliament's conference of presidents of the groups on 10 October. The 20th Sakharov Prize will be awarded at a ceremony during the Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg on 20 November.
The Ethiopian journalists, Reeyot Alemu and Eskinder Nega; the Russian political prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky; the Standing Men demonstrations in Turkey; and the global media campaign against the slave trade, human trafficking and forced child labour (the CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern Day Slavery) were also the in the running (see EUROPE 10923).
Ales Bialatski receives Vaclav Havel Prize. Elsewhere, the Belarusian political prisoner, Ales Bialatski, received the first Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize from the Council of Europe on 30 September - a prize “which aims to reward outstanding civil society action in the defence of human rights in Europe and beyond”. “In his daily fight against violations of human rights and against injustice, arbitrariness, and authoritarianism, Ales Bialatski worked without respite so that the citizens of Belarus can one day enjoy European standards”, said Jean Claude Mignon, the chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the leader of the jury. Georgia's Young Lawyers' Association and the Rights Defence Network of China were also finalists. (CG/transl.fl)