On Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 September, the S&D, Greens/EFA, EPP, ALDE, ECR and GUE/NGL Groups announced their candidate for the 2018 Sakharov Prize.
The S&D and Greens/EFA Groups each decided to put forward NGOs that save lives of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. Eleven NGOs are jointly presented: Proactiva Open Arms, SOS Mediterranée, Médecins Sans Frontières International, Sea-Watch, Sea Eye, Jugend Rettet, Lifeline, MOAS, Save the Children, PROEM-AID and Boat Refugee Foundation. "By awarding them with the Sakharov Prize we would demonstrate our solidarity with these NGOs (...) and we would send a strong message to those who are using migration to tear our societies apart, and to bring down the European project", S&D Vice-President Elena Valenciano stated (see EUROPE 12089).
The ECR Group chose Seyran Ateş, a German lawyer born in Turkey who is a human rights activist. "In 2017 she opened the Ibn Rushd-Goethe in Berlin – the first liberal mosque in Germany", the ECR Group states.
The ALDE Group meanwhile wants to promote Caesar, a former Syrian military photographer "who risked his own life to bring pictures of the unspeakable crimes committed in Syrian military prisons to the attention of the world". "Caesar's work is a vital contribution to the task of holding the Syrian government to account for thousands of heinous crimes, and his dedication to expose the truth obliges us to fight against impunity, in Syria and internationally", ALDE President Guy Verhofstadt stated.
On the EPP side, it is the Ukrainian film maker Oleg Sentsov, who opposed the annexation of Crimea, that has been nominated. Detained since May 2014 and sentenced to 20 years in prison in a high security criminal colony by a Russian court for a terrorist plot in Crimea, Sentsov has been on hunger strike since 14 May.
For the GUE/NGL Group, it is the Moroccan Nasser Zefzafi who has been chosen. This leader of the Hirak movement is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for having protested, in demonstrations in 2016, against socio-economic inequalities in the Rif region. Marie-Christine Vergiat says that "through this nomination, we want to show our solidarity with the Moroccan people, who demand social justice, human rights and dignity".
When asked by EUROPE, a spokesperson for the EFDD Group said that the discussions on the choice of an EFDD candidate for the 2018 Sakharov Prize were still ongoing within the group and that a decision had not yet been taken.
The candidates will be presented during a joint meeting of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee and subcommittee on human rights on 27 September. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)