Morgan Tsvangirai nominated for the 2008 Sakharov Prize

Morgan Tsvangirai has been nominated for the 2008 Sakharov Prize.

The Prize is named after Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet scientist and dissident. It was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament as a way to honour individuals or organizations who had dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedoms.

Candidates are nominated by a political group or a minimum of 40 MEPs. Morgan Tsvangirai was nominated for the prize by Luís Queiró and the nomination was supported by 96 others.

Seven other candidates have been nomintaed alongside Morgan Tsvangirai. They are Ingrid Betancourt, Dalai Lama, European Roma Rights Centre, Hu Jia, Alexandr Kozulin, Abbot Apollinaire Malu Malu and Mikhail Trepashkin. More information on these candidates is available here on the European Parliament website:

The nominations will be officially presented to a joint meeting of the EP’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Development Committee and Human Rights Subcommittee on the morning of Tuesday 9 September. The next step takes place on 22 September, when the Foreign Affairs Committee will narrow down the number of candidates to a shortlist of three.  The Conference of Presidents will select the winner in mid-October and the prize will be awarded to the laureate at the Strasbourg plenary sitting of 17 December.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Sakharov Prize. To mark the occasion, a special event to which all previous winners of the prize are to be invited will take place in Strasbourg on 16 December.

Aung San Suu Kyi won the Sakharov Prize in 1990.

This entry was posted by Sokwanele on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.