In Stockholm there are seven human rights and environmental activists have been awarded the Right Livelihood Award. The award, which is also known as the Alternative Nobel prize, endowed with prize money of three million Swedish kronor (about 290,000 euros). The money, the price of parts-makers.
for the First time, activists from Saudi Arabia received the award. Honored were the three saudi Arabian human rights activist Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammed Fahad al-Kahtani and Walid Abu al-Chai. With their common organization in Saudi Arabia for political freedom and fight for separation of powers and the equality of the sexes.
Personally, the activists were not able to accept the award, however, the three critics of the regime are currently in prison. In their place, the lawyer Yahya Assiri took part in the ceremony in Stockholm’s Vasa Museum. He said according to speech manuscript, the three activists were a great Inspiration for others, for human rights. “If Saudi Arabia is interested in real reforms, as it claims, the Regime, should be celebrated as the brave Reformer in your home country as a hero instead of years and years to spend in prison,” Assiri.
Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer from Burkina Faso, and the Australian agricultural scientist Tony Rinaudo were honored for their efforts to combat desertification in the Sahel Region of Africa. Sawadogo had managed to cultivate with the help of traditional techniques used in a forest. Rinaudo had developed as a development workers, and scientists, among others, in Niger successful techniques against desertification. The 75-year-old Yacouba Sawadogo said of his award: “Everything that I own, are a donkey and a cart. My only wealth of the forest that I have planted.”
honorary award for Anti-corruption activists
A non-doped honor award went also to Thelma Aldana from Guatemala, and Iván Velásquez from Colombia for its successful fight against corruption in Guatemala. Aldana said, according to speech manuscript, Guatemala was organized, “in order to enrich powerful actors, and this is what we have begun to fight”. You have proved “that public institutions can work for all citizens and not only for those who are protected by powerful politicians and supported”. Velásquez referred to in his speech, corruption as a crime against humanity and human dignity.
the Director of The Right Livelihood Award Foundation, Ole von Uexküll, said the Foundation will accompany the winners all their lives and promote their work. He praised the winners for their energy, courage and creativity. Thus, you have to overcome first of all unsolvable problems. In the face of dramatic environmental destruction and political failure are the winners showed a better way in the future, so von Uexküll.
The Right Livelihood Award was founded in 1980. With the award, among other things, people to be appreciated, the advocate for human rights, peace, the protection of the environment and the sustainable use of our resources. The award is funded with private donations; about the award an international Jury will decide. Was founded the Right Livelihood Award from the German-Swedish publicist and later members of the European Parliament Carl Wolmar Jakob von Uexküll.
