Counted on the left

The exposure of the American special services Edward Snowden is nominated for the Sakharov European Parliament Prize "For Freedom of Thought." This was reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the representative of the European United Left/Left-Green North faction that nominated Snowden. The interlocutor of the agency clarified that on Wednesday the faction will officially announce this, and on September 16, at a joint meeting of the parliamentary committees for foreign affairs, development and human rights, a submission of Snowden's candidacy will be held.

“Informers cannot be considered as criminals, they must have our defense,” the representative of the faction remarked. “Edward Snowden risked his life to confirm what we had long suspected,“ mass tracking users on the Internet, which is a major scandal of our time. ”

The Laureate of the Sakharov Prize will be elected leaders of the European Parliament factions in October. In December, the awarding ceremony will be held in Strasbourg.

The Sakharov Award has been awarded annually since 1988. It is awarded to both people and organizations in recognition of a special contribution to the defense of human rights. Nominees are nominated by the deputy factions of the European Parliament or a group of deputies who need to gather in support of their candidate at least 40 signatures. The monetary component of the award is 50 thousand euros.

The first laureates of the award were the leader of the Negro liberation movement in South Africa Nelson Mandela and, posthumously - Soviet Politsyk Anatoly Marchenko, who died in December 1986 in Chistopol after a four -month hunger strike.

In 2009, Russian human rights defenders Lyudmila Alekseev, Sergey Kovalev and Oleg Orlov received the award. In 2011, five Arab Spring activists were awarded the prize.

In July 2013, Stefan Svalfors, a university professor in the Swedish city of Umo, suggested that Snowena be nominated to the Nobel Prize of the World. Svalfors noted that, having awarded the Snowden Award, the Nobel's Nobel Committee, in particular, will correct his 2009 mistake, when US President Barack Obama was awarded with this prize.