Kazulin Nominated for European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize

Former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin who was released from prison last month has been nominated for the European Parliament’s 2008 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Alyaksandr Kazulin The other people nominated for the prize include the Dalai Lama, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Franco-Colombian ex-hostage Ingrid Betancourt figure, NGO European Roma Rights Centre, jailed Chinese pro-democracy campaigner Hu Jia, Russian human rights activist Mikhail Trepashkin and Abbot Apollinaire Malu Malu, head of the Democratic Republic of Congo's electoral commission, according to the European Parliament’s press office.

The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee will winnow down the list to three names on September 22 and the winner will be chosen in mid-October.

The prize is to be presented at a Strasbourg plenary session on December 17.

All previous winners of the prize will be invited to attend a special ceremony in Strasbourg on December 16 as the European Parliament marks 20 years since the prize was instituted.
The Sakharov Prize is awarded annually on or around December 10, the day on which the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists won the prize in 2004 and opposition politician Alyaksandr Milinkevich was awarded the prize in 2006.

Dr. Kazulin, rector of Belarusian State University between 1996 and 2003 who was a candidate in Belarus’ 2006 presidential election, was arrested in March 2006 and sentenced to prison several months later on what is widely viewed as a politically motivated charge. He was released in mid-August after being granted a pardon by Alyaksandr Lukashenka.