Basement nominees for the Sakharov Award

Today, September 15, the European Parliament called nominees for the "For Freedom of Thought" Award named after Sakharov for 2017.

It is reported by Interfax .

Among the nominees, the Pakistani Christian Azya Bibi, sentenced to the death penalty “For blasphemy”, human rights activist from Guatemala, a member of the Council of the people Kiche Lolita Chavez, Turkish politicians of Selahattin Demirtash and Figen Yuksekdag, leaders of the Prourdish Democratic Party of Peoples, who were arrested in 2016 on charges of terrorist activity.

The list of nominees also included the repressed figures of the Democratic opposition of Venezuela, the Swedish journalist of the Erytrey origin, Davit Isaac, the authorities of Eritrea, and the Burundi human rights activist, the founder of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Prisoners, Pierre Clave Mbonypa.

The nominees will be officially submitted on October 2 at a joint meeting of the European Parliament Committee for Foreign Affairs and Development and Subcommittee on Human Rights, three finalists will be selected on October 10 at a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and development committees.

The laureate will announce the conference of the chairmen of political factions and the head of the European Parliament on October 26, the award ceremony will be held in Strasbourg on December 13.

The Prize "For Freedom of Thought" by the name of Sakharov is annually awarded for achievements in protecting human rights and his main freedoms, the development of democracy and the defending of the rule of law, respect for international law and the protection of minority rights. The monetary part of the award is 50 thousand euros.

The first laureates of the Sakharov Award in 1988 were Nelson Mandela and Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko. A year ago, Iraqi human rights activists Nadia Murad and Lamia Aji Bashar received the prize.