Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/614946
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2015 16 Inside the EP 16 Inside the EP 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 the European People's Party and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) MEPs Dita Charanzová and Fernando Maura Barandiarán. 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 the Eurosceptic political grouping 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, a 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 18 June 2014 and illegally transferred to Russia. Nominated by the conservative grouping 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 programmes 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 European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL). 2015 nominations The Sakharov Prize Taking a stand, loud and clear Part 4 in our series on the European Parliament THE Sakharov prize, established in 1988, is named for the nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov who led the Soviet Union's development of the hydrogen bomb and then became a tireless crusader for human rights. It was set up in 1988 to honour individu- als and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. The prize recognises achievement in defence of human rights and fundamen- tal freedoms, particularly the right to free expression, safeguarding the right of mi- norities, respect for international law and development of democracy and imple- mentation on the rule of law. The prize is awarded to persons, associa- tions or organisations irrespective of their nationality, place of residence or seat. Nominations for the Sakharov Prize can be made by political groups or by at least 40 MEPs. Based on the nominations, the foreign affairs and development commit- tees vote on a shortlist of three finalists. After that the Conference of Presidents, made up of the EP President and the lead- ers of the political groups, select the win- ner. The winner receives a certificate and a cheque for €50,000. Past winners include Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Ky and Kofi Annan. In 2013, the prize went to Malala Yousafzai, a teen- age Pakistani activist for women's rights who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2014, it was awarded to Denis Mukwege, a gynecologic surgeon in the Democratic Republic of Congo who has devoted him- self to helping victims of sexual violence during wartime. RAIF Badawi is a 31-year-old Saudi Ara- bian blogger and advocate of freedom of thought and expression who two years ago was found guilty of breaking the country's technology laws and of insulting Islam. Badawi founded and ran the Saudi Liber- als, and later the Free Saudi Liberal Net- work, online forums for the discussion of religion and politics in the conservative country, and had a thousand registered us- ers when he was detained for a day in 2008 and interrogated on suspicion of apostasy, a crime punishable by death in Saudi Ara- bia. Subsequently, he was banned indefinitely from leaving Saudi Arabia, his bank ac- counts were frozen and his wife's family at- tempted to force a divorce. A fatwa was put on his head by a hardline imam. Badawi valiantly continued to air his mod- erately liberal views. He wrote, amongst other issues, in defence of the right to free- dom of thought and expression and called for a society open to the views of others. A free thinker in an Arab society whim- pering under the theocratic yoke, Badawi wrote, just needed to express an opinion to bring down on their head a fatwa. This, he feared, would cause the brightest minds to flee. A voice of liberalism in Saudi Arabia, Badawi was engaging with his writings, online and in traditional media, in enlight- ening his community and defeating igno- rance, eroding the untouchability of the clergy and promoting respect for freedom of expression, women's rights and those of minorities and poor people in Saudi Ara- bia, as he wrote from prison in 2015 in a preface to a book of writings of his salvaged despite the permanent closure of his web- sites. Badawi was arrested in 2012 and indict- ed on several charges including apostasy, though no court has ruled on the latter. He was convicted for establishing a forum hosting blasphemous commentary and blasphemous online posts, and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in 2013, and then resentenced to 1,000 lash- es and ten years in prison plus a fine of a million riyals (€226 000) in 2014. He was flogged 50 times before a chant- ing crowd in front of a Jeddah mosque in January 2015 in what was meant to be the first in a series of 1,000 floggings to be carried out over twenty weeks. Doctors who examined him after the first, fast lashings found wounds so deep, they judged he would not survive an- other flogging. The international outcry and concerns about his health have so far stayed further lashings, but his sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2015. He is banned from using any media outlets and from travelling abroad for 10 years after his release from prison. Badawi's wife Ensaf Haidar and their three children live in Canada, having fled Saudi Arabia in 2013 because of anony- mous death threats. In prison Raif Badawi has found understanding of the humanity of those he is incarcerated with. Who is Raif Badawi? Previous winners Malala Yousafzal, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the award in 1990 while still under house arrest Raif Badawi is banned from using any media outlets and from travelling abroad for 10 years after his release from prison