Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the individuals of Ukraine, Julian Assange, Sonia Guajajara, and the Colombian Comision de Verdad are among the many nominees for the 2022 Sakharov prize, an EU award devoted to people, teams or organisations that contribute to defending freedom of thought.
Every year, European Parliament’s political teams current their candidates in September. Eligible candidates want to assemble the signatures of no less than 40 EU lawmakers.
The deadline for presenting the candidacies was on Thursday (15 September).
The Sakharov Prize was awarded for the primary time in 1988 to Nelson Mandela and Anatoli Marchenko and the final award in 2021 was given to the Russian activist Alexei Navalny, at present detained in Russia.
Zelenskyy’s candidacy is supported by the European Folks’s Get together (EPP), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Renew, whereas socialists and EPP group assist the Ukrainian civil society.
“We have now no doubts that the courageous individuals of Ukraine, lead by President Volodymyr Zelensky, need to win this 12 months’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought,” mentioned EPP MEP Rasa Juknevičienė, vice-chair of international affairs in a press launch after presenting the nominee.
“Since February the individuals of Ukraine have been preventing an unequal battle towards the brutal aggressor who’s trampling on the human rights, numerous civilians. But they stands steadfast in defence of their nation but additionally for our European democracy and freedom” mentioned S&D MEP for international affairs Pedro Marques on Thursday (15 September).
The Italian 5 Stars Motion nominated the journalist Julian Assange, which based on the 5 Stars Motion MEP Sabrina Pignedoli is “the image of residents’ proper to know the reality. This candidacy is supposed to struggle the ability which seeks to ‘punish’ those that don’t conform to pre-packaged truths”.
The WikiLeaks’ founder is at present in London’s Belmarsh jail pending an attraction towards his extradition to the US.
He’s needed by the US authorities on 18 counts, together with espionage, regarding WikiLeaks’ launch of huge troves of confidential US navy data and diplomatic cables which Washington mentioned had put lives in peril.
The Greens nominated the Brazilian environmental activist Sonia Guajajara, the primary indigenous individual to run for a federal govt place in Brazil in 2018, who was named one of many 100 most influential individuals on the earth by Time journal.
In the meantime, the Left group backed la Comision de Verdad colombiana (Colombian fee for the reality), an autonomous entity of the Colombian State that seeks to make clear the patterns and causes of the nation’s armed battle which began within the late Forties.
[Edited by Benjamin Fox]
