The nominations will be formally presented on September 28 during a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and development committees and the human rights subcommittee. The winner will be announced in October.
The nominees for the 2015 Sakharov Prize are:
Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian blogger and author of the website Free Saudi Liberals, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a hefty fine for insulting Islamic values on his website. Badawi was nominated by S&D, ECR and Greens/EFA.
Political prisoners in Venezuela as well as the democratic opposition in Venezuela embodied by the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, an election coalition formed in 2008 to unify the opposition to President Hugo Chávez's political party. Nominated by EPP and MEPs Fernando Maura Barandiarán and Dita Charanzová.
Edna Adan Ismail, a Somali activist for the abolition of female genital mutilation and a former government minister. She is the director and founder of the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa in Somaliland (Somalia). Nominated by EFDD.
Boris Nemtsov, a Russian physicist, former deputy prime minister and opposition politician who was assassinated in Moscow in February 2015. Nominated by ALDE.
Nadiya Savchenko, an Ukrainian military pilot and a member of the Verkhovna Rada and of Ukraine’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who was captured on June 18, 2014, and illegally transferred to Russia. Nominated by ECR.
Three whistle-blowers: Edward Snowden, a computer expert who worked as a contractor for the US National Security Agency and leaked details of its mass surveillance program to the press; Antoine Deltour, a former Price Waterhouse Coopers auditor who revealed secret tax rulings with multinational companies in Luxembourg to journalists; and Stéphanie Gibaud, who uncovered tax evasion and money laundering by UBS AG. Nominated by GUE/NGL.
Sakharov Prize
Established in 1988 in honor of Russian nuclear scientist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is the highest tribute to human rights endeavors the European Union accords. The prize is awarded annually to honor individuals or organizations for their efforts for human rights, fundamental freedoms.
The EP awards the Sakharov Prize and its €50,000 endowment at a formal plenary sitting in Strasbourg. Political groups or at least 40 MEPs can nominate candidates, the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees vote on a short list of three nominees, and the Conference of Presidents chooses the laureate(s).
The Sakharov Prize rewards in particular freedom of expression; safeguarding the rights of minorities; respect for international law; development of democracy and implementation of the rule of law. The prize has been awarded to individuals and to associations: dissidents, political leaders, journalists, lawyers, civil society activists, writers, mothers and wives, minority leaders, an anti-terrorist group, peace activists, an anti-torture activist, a cartoonist, a long-serving prisoner of conscience, a film maker and even the UN as a body.
