Brussels, 22/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 21 October, the Congolese doctor, Denis Mukwege, became the EP's laureate for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2014.
President Schulz announced that “the Conference of Presidents decided unanimously to award Dr Denis Mukwege from Democratic Republic of Congo the Sakharov Prize for his fight for protection especially of women”. The 59-year-old gynaecologist founded the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in 1998, when a war took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where today he still treats victims of sexual violence who have sustained serious injuries.
The president of the S&D group, Gianni Pittella from Italy said “Doctor Mukwege deserves the Sakharov prize due to his consistent efforts to defend women's rights over many years, as well as his awareness regarding the question of rape as a weapon of war, his knowledge that he has transferred through training other surgeons and the personal risk he has taken in carrying out his work”. According to Louis Michel (ALDE, Belgium), this prize is “further recognition of the admirable work Mr Mukwege has done to help these nameless and voiceless vulnerable women, so that they can have a new life and a new identity… it is an example of humanity, a figure of our century, who honours Africa and the world”. Mukwege will be invited to Strasbourg on 26 November to receive his prize during the plenary session.
The two other finalists were the Ukrainian Euromaidan movement and the Azerbaijani human rights activist Leila Yunus. Schulz announced that the representatives from the Euromaidan movement would be invited to the prize-giving ceremony for Mukwege, “to show the EP's support” for the movement. An EP delegation will also be sent to Azerbaijan to meet and support Yunus, who is currently in prison as part of her fight for democracy and freedom.
The president of the EP is also underlying the EP's concerns involving the 2012 Sakharov prize-winner, the Arabian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, “victim of an arbitrary decision” by the regime that has banned her from exercising her right to practice her profession for three years. He called on the Iranian government to “let her work freely and without restrictions”. Finally, Schulz announced that he had sent a letter to the Russian government underlining the parliament's concerns about the measures taken against the 2009 Sakharov prize-winner, the Memorial NGO, which preserves the memory of the victims of Soviet repression and which has been the subject of legal proceedings by the Ministry of Justice to dissolve the organisation. (CG)