Nasrin Sotoudeh Wins Alternative Nobel Prize
The name of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer and human rights activist who is imprisoned in Iran, was announced on Thursday, October 1st, as one of the winners of the prestigious “Right Livelihood” award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.
Ms. Sotoudeh is the first Iranian activist to receive this award.
In a statement released by the “Right Livelihood” foundation on Thursday for this occasion, it states that the 2020 award winners share a common point, which is “their struggle for equality, democracy, justice and freedom.”
Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer from the United States, Lottie Cunningham Wren, an environmental activist from Nicaragua, and Ales Bialiatski, a human rights activist from Belarus, are the other winners of the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2020.
Ales Bialiatski and the non-governmental organization Viasna, which works in the field of human rights and whose name appears alongside Mr. Bialiatski’s in the list of winners, are the first Belarusian winners of this award.
The four winners of the Alternative Nobel Prize, who were selected by an international jury, will each receive a cash prize equivalent to one million Swedish crowns, approximately 110,000 dollars.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes on political charges and had been on a hunger strike in prison since August 10th in protest of the conditions of political prisoners, ended her hunger strike on the fifth of October.
During the time she was on her hunger strike, hundreds of activists, writers, and cultural figures from around the world called for her release by signing statements.
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 “to honor and support courageous men and women who are rolling up their sleeves to solve global problems.”
This award became known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize” and so far has had 178 winners from 70 countries around the world.
Source: Radio Farda
