A British anti-arms trade campaign and promoters of peace, human rights and the environment from the United States, Afghanistan and Turkey have been named as winners of this year’s Right Livelihood Awards, also known as the “alternative Nobels.”
American political theorist Gene Sharp will share the 150,000 euro ($195,000) prize with Afghan rights activist Sima Samar and Britain’s Campaign Against Arms Trade.
Sharp, 83, is the author of a manual for nonviolent struggle “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” The writings of Sharp, a former Harvard researcher, have been widely translated and used to promote nonviolent resistance in countries as varied as Serbia and Egypt.
Samar, 55, was honoured “for her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world,” the jury said in a statement.
In 1989, Samar established the Shuhada Organization in Quetta, Pakistan, to provide health care to refugee Afghan women and girls and train medical staff. After the fall of the Taliban, she returned to Afghanistan and served as a deputy president in the Afghan Transitional Administration and then as Minister for Women’s Affairs.
Turkish environmentalist Hayrettin Karaca, who co-founded the TEMA foundation that has grown into an international movement that combats soil erosion and protects natural habitats, will receive an honorary prize for “a lifetime of tireless advocacy and support for the protection and stewardship of our natural world,” the jury said.
The awards were founded in 1980 by Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull to recognize work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.
Source: Khaama Press