MEPs at the European Parliament's foreign affairs and development committees voted on Tuesday 11 October to decide on the shortlist for the three finalists for the 2016 Sakharov Prize. These are Can Dündar, Moustafa Djemilev, and Nadia Murad Basee and Lamiya Aji Bashar. The fourth candidate in the running, but who did not make to the shortlist, was Ilham Tohti, an activist who fights for Uighur rights in China.
Can Dündar was nominated by the Greens/EFA, EFDD and GUE Groups. He is the former editor in chief of the daily Turkish newspaper, Cumhuriyet. He was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months in prison for "divulging state secrets" and now lives in exile.
Moustafa Djemilev was proposed by the EPP and the ECR Groups and is the head of the Crimean Tatars. He was deported as a child to Central Asia and following the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia, he is again banned from entering Crimean territory.
Finally, the Yezidi survivors of Islamic State (Daesh), Nadia Murad Basee and Lamiya Aji Bashar, were nominated by the ALDE and S&D Groups. Like thousands of young girls and women, they were kidnapped by Daesh and forced into sexual slavery.
The prizewinner will be chosen by the Conference of Presidents at the European Parliament on 27 October. The award ceremony will take place on 14 December during the plenary session in Strasbourg. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)