Jîna Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who lost her life after being detained by Iran’s morality police on 16 September last year, and the ‘Jin Jîyan Azadi’ (Woman Life Freedom) movement, a pivotal initiative for women’s liberation that originated in the Kurdistan province of Iran, known as Rojhilat, were nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which has been awarded every year by the European Parliament since 1988 to individuals or institutions that defend freedom of thought around the world.
The European Parliament (EP) announced the candidates for the award on their website. The Foreign Affairs Committee, Human Rights Subcommittee, and Development Committee presented nine candidates for the Sakharov Freedom of Thought Prize on 20 September.
The Foreign Affairs and Development Committees will announce the three finalists on 12 October, and Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola, along with political group leaders, will determine the winner. The public announcement of the winner is scheduled for 19 October, and the award ceremony will take place during the EP General Assembly on 13 December in Strasbourg, France.
Named after the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Soviet physicist, and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize was first awarded in 1988 to Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, and the first black president of the Republic of South Africa. In 1995, the Sakharov Prize was awarded to Leyla Zana, renowned Kurdish politician and human rights activist, and the first Kurdish female member of the Turkish parliament, although she was unable to receive it at that time due to her imprisonment. It was presented to her nine years later.
In 2016, Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji, two Yazidi women activists who survived the massacre of Yazidis by ISIS in Sinjar (Shengal) in 2014, received the Sakharov Prize.
The Sakharov Prize has also been awarded to notable figures including Alexander Dubcek, Aung San Suu Kyi, Teslime Nesrin, Wei Jingsheng, Ibrahim Rugova, Kofi Annan, and Hu Jia.
