1052 We used to think that East Germany was "Far Left"; now we know it was "Far Right"

We used to think that East Germany was "Far Left"; now we know it was
"Far Right"

Newsletter published on September 9, 2019

(1) We used to think that East Germany was "Far Left"; now we know it
was "Far Right"
(2) AfD message: modern Multiculturalism is bad, GDR days were the best
(3) AfD gains in Saxony, Brandenburg, Dresden
(4) Far-left Protesters spit on AfD Member
(5) Economist: The AfD’s strong showing in two state elections is a
worrying portent
(6) EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton nominated Pussy Riot for
the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights
(7) Sakharov Prize awarded to opponents of Maduro, Assad, Gaddafi,
Putin, Iran, Castro, Mubarak, China, Myanmar, Belarus and Turkey

(1) We used to think that East Germany was "Far Left"; now we know it
was "Far Right"
- by Peter Myers, September 9, 2019

We used to think that East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) was
"Far Left".

Now we know better; apparently, it was "Far Right" all along.

That's because Alternative for Germany, the political party that looks
back to GDR days with nostalgia, is branded "Far Right" by all the other
parties.

AfD pines for those days of "a job for life, healthcare, a livable
income, a home, education and training" - according to item 2, an
article from Spiked Online.

Spiked Online is probably also "Far Right", because it rejects
Multiculturalism, Feminism, Sex Change, Gay Marriage, Open Borders, and
Political Correctness - just like AfD.

Yet Spiked Online began, many years ago, as Living Marxism, a
publication of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). In 1988, it
changed tack, coming out against all those fashionable "New Left" causes.

Living Marxism then morphed into LM Magazine. When LM Magazine was sued
over an article on the war against Yugoslavia (it backed Serbia), it
changed into Spiked Online.

You can read a history of those changes, albeit a hostile one, at
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Living_Marxism

I used to think that I was "Left" too - because I supported the heritage
of Ben Chifley: the socialist, full-employment economy Australia had
from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s.

We called it "socialist", because we had a lot of publicly-owned
monopolies then:

The Post Office (including Telecom, or Telstra);
Qantas - Australia's overseas airline;
Trans-Australian Airlines - one of the two internal airlines;
The Reserve bank - Australia's central bank (it was required to maintain
full employment);
The Commonwealth Bank - the people's bank, providing affordable loans;
The many State banks, and the Rural bank;
The railways - 99% were publicly-owned;
The Australian National Line, Australia's shipping line;
The Snowy Mountains Authority, a New-Deal type electricity authority;
The Hydro Electric Commission, Tasmania's electricity authority;
All the other Electricity Authorities;
The Grain Board and other marketing boards;
The Universities were all 100% Government-owned;
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission);
The CSIRO as the peak scientific research body.;
75% of schools were Government-owned and operated.
http://mailstar.net/xLeague.html

Taxes were used to build these assets, creating jobs, not for handouts
as at present.

However, it was a Mixed Economy - just like Japan of the Miracle years
(1970s & 80s), and just like China now. Such economies were the
REALwinners of the Cold War.

But Thatcher and Reagan took the advice of Friedrich von Hayek, Milton
Friedman and their Mont Pelerin Society, and turned the lot over to
foreign Multinationals who export our jobs and don't pay tax.

Australia's postwar economy was similar to the British economy
introduced by Clement Attlee.

Such policies were deemed 'Left' at the time; but a Trotskyist
publication of 1979 explained that they were actually 'Nationalist'.

The book Socialism or Nationalism?: Which Road for the Australian Labor
Movement?, by Jon West, Dave Holmes and Gordon Adler, published by
Pathfinder Press (a Trotskyist publisher), argued for Free Trade, the
abandonment of tariffs, and against the 1950s economic model. It
condemned all the other Communist parties as Stalinist and Nationalist:
http://mailstar.net/xTrots.html .

What we thought was "Left" was actually "Far Right".

One lesson from this is that Stalinists and Trotskyists have very
different conceptions of what is "Left" and "Right". In the 1950s and
60s we were operating in a somewhat Stalinist milieu, judging "Left" in
comparison to the Soviet Union.

But Trotskyists regarded the Soviet Union as "Far Right".

Clearly, we have since adopted their terminology. This gives an idea of
who is actually in power.

We might not recognise them all as Trotskyists; they might instead seem
to be Feminists, or Greens, or Gay advocates, or Social Justice
Warriors. But many of their leaders, in the formative 1970s, looked to
the early Soviet Union for inspiration. The activists on campus were
matched by the Frankfurt School  academics, who were doing their best to
deconstruct Western Civilisation.

Left-wing Billionaires such as George Soros have led from on high,
pushing the same agenda that Trots push on the steeets. The Economist
Magazine, owned by Lord Rothschild, routinely sides with the "Left" and
castigates the "Far Right".

The Economist recently opined, "Germany’s governing parties keep the far
right at bay—just. The AfD’s strong showing in two state elections is a
worrying portent" (item 5).

"Human Rights" was a slogan that helped undo the Soviet Union. Yet
"Human Rights" has Left ancestry. The French Revolutionaries, amidst the
bloodbath of the Terror, were the first to decree "Human Rights".
Maximilien Robespierre was a champion of the Rights of Man.

H. G. Wells, an ardent Trotskyist, drafted a "Human Rights" declaration
with which to defend Trotsky - the same Trotsky who wrote a book called
The Defence of Terrorism: http://mailstar.net/worst.html .

Wells' version later contributed to the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2014, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton nominated Pussy Riot
for the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights. (see item 6)

The Sakharov Prize is awarded by the European Parliament.

An examination of who has received this prize in recent years is most
instructive.

It turns out that it has been awarded to opponents of Maduro, Assad,
Gaddafi, Putin, Iran, Castro, Egypt (Mubarak), China, Myanmar, Belarus
and Turkey (see item 7).

In effect, for Colour Revolutions across the world; for Prague Springs
and Arab Springs and Regime Change.

(2) AfD message: modern Multiculturalism is bad, GDR days were the best
https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/10/03/why-germans-support-the-afd/

Why Germans support the AfD

It owes far more to existential fears than anti-immigrant sentiment.

JAMES LACEY

3rd October 2017

We are often told that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the dawn
of a new era, bringing former Communist states into the light of
modernity, opportunity and choice. The people of the Eastern Bloc were
liberated from oppression by Western democracy and wealth. The
understanding is that we are all better off because of it.

Yet, for many people, things are not like that.

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a complicated, corrupt and
often dysfunctional state, but to many of its citizens it offered a
degree of stability, security and structure. It offered a job for life,
healthcare, a livable income, a home, education and training. People
grew up with the understanding that if they worked hard and contributed
to society, the state would provide a relatively stable and secure life.

And then the wall came down, and everything changed.

The rise of the AfD in the east has been 27 years in the making, not a
sudden reaction to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policy of the
past two years. From 1990 onwards, eastern Germany suffered a chronic
brain drain to the west, leaving behind rural industries (agriculture,
mining, chemicals) that were suddenly under huge pressure, before
international competition and aggressive acquisitions led to widespread
closures of many key, regional companies.

States like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are not historically wealthy (and
even now the annual income of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s residents is only
67 per cent of the national average). The German government has tried to
generate growth and attract investment, but companies like Samsung and
First Solar have come and gone. The brain drain continues unabated, as
young people leave rural areas en masse for big cities, seeking escape
and employment. What is left behind is an ageing, shrinking and largely
poor population.

In the recent election, AfD billboards contrasted traditional German
imagery (girls in Bavarian ‘dirndl’ dresses, for example) with the
perception of the ‘new’ Germany (including Burkas) to highlight what it
says is at stake – the German identity. This resonates particularly
deeply in the former GDR, where many have already lost their identity
once and are not prepared to lose what’s left. The AfD message is clear
– modern multiculturalism is bad, the old ways are good. This is
something that is heard a lot in the east, particularly from older
people: the belief that the old GDR days were the best days – it’s
called Ostalgie.

However, the old days in the East German city of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder
were very different from the old days in the West German city of
Frankfurt-am-Main, which goes some way to explaining the disparity in
AfD votes between the east, where it picked up 20 per cent of the vote,
and the west, where it picked up just 10 per cent.

To understand where these voters are today, we must understand where
they came from – and people from the former GDR come from a very
different place to people who grew up in the west. Younger voters in the
east grew up in a unified Germany. Indeed, many first-time voters this
year were born almost a decade after the fall of the wall, but they
still feel its poor economic legacy.

In eastern states, the cliche of immigrants coming to take people’s jobs
is replaced with a narrative focused on immigrants coming to take
people’s culture. There aren’t many jobs, especially for new arrivals
who don’t speak German, and a threat to identity is even more fearsome.
It is experienced as a strike at the very essence of an east German’s
existence. For many, after losing (or never having) careers and
stability, a sense of cultural self-identification is more sacrosanct
than ever.

It’s easy to look at the anti-immigrant and Islamophobic nature of the
AfD’s campaigning and assume that these are the decisive factors for
voters. For a start, former GDR states are overwhelmingly white. You see
very few people of colour in these parts of Germany, and fewer still in
traditionally white-collar or management roles. There have been
consistent neo-Nazi attacks on immigrants throughout eastern Germany
over the past two decades, and it remains a stronghold of fringe
far-right groups. Until now voters had remained loyal to establishment
parties like the CDU, the SPD and Die Linke at the ballot box, instead
of backing previous far-right challengers like the NPD, which only ever
achieved modest regional representation and nothing on a national scale.

It is easy to conclude that a right-wing party will do well in deprived
states with a history of right-wing violence, but that viewpoint is one
dimensional, overlooks the AfD’s success across Germany and doesn’t
fully explain its rapid ascent.

Many people in eastern Germany feel left behind by establishment parties
and bear a sense of resentment that they never anticipated when growing
up in the GDR, or in its aftermath. This resentment far predates the
AfD, which was only founded in 2013. Crucially, however, the AfD is not
the establishment. That, perhaps, is what has attracted voters, more
than overt racism or Islamophobia. The AfD garnered votes from young and
old, male and female, eastern and western, rural and urban. These people
are not all bound by a common hatred of Islam; rather, they are bound by
common economic struggle, loss of trust in the system, loss of hope.

Older voters grew up with stability in the GDR, before the rug was
pulled from under them. Younger voters have never had the rug. To both
groups, the seemingly endless struggle to find work and to climb out of
poverty feels harsh and unfair. Some may blame immigrants for their
hardships, but most blame politicians like Chancellor Merkel.

Reports suggest as much as 60 per cent of the AfD vote was a protest,
hinting perhaps that this is the peak of its popularity and the status
quo will be restored in future. But the AfD achieved this unprecedented
result without a decisive, standout policy. It was not calling for
Germany to leave the EU, or campaigning for a wall to be built along the
Polish border.

And it also achieved this unprecedented result without a flamboyant
leader, a Le Pen, a Farage, a Wilders or a Trump at the helm. But what
if they had one? Would it be possible for a demagogue to lead the AfD to
greater electoral success? Or will the AfD implode through infighting,
or be usurped by former co-chair, Frauke Petry, with a new populist
movement?

Once she navigates the difficult business of forming a ruling coalition,
perhaps the greatest challenge facing Merkel in the next four years is
how best to stop the AfD from gaining more momentum.

James Lacey lived for almost six years in Berlin and until recently
worked extensively at industrial and manufacturing companies in eastern
German cities, including Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, Schwedt and Demmin.

(3) AfD gains in Saxony, Brandenburg, Dresden

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7415863/2-eastern-German-states-hold-elections-far-right-eyes-gains.html

Germany's far-right AfD party nearly triples its share of the vote in
regional elections and warns Merkel's coalition it is no longer
'business as usual'

The far-right party almost tripled its share of the vote in Saxony to
27.5 per cent

Saw support double in neighbouring Brandenburg, a major feat for the new
party AfD leaders in Saxony parliament, Dresden, brimmed with confidence
over beer They believe gains can destabilise the national coalition
under Angela Merkel

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 16:11 AEST, 1 September 2019 | UPDATED: 17:27 AEST, 2
September 2019

An emboldened far-right Alternative for Germany warned Chancellor Angela
Merkel's ruling coalition partners they could not carry on as before
after luring many of their voters to come second in two regional
elections in eastern Germany on Sunday.

The party almost tripled its share of the vote in Saxony to 27.5 per
cent and saw its support double in neighbouring Brandenburg, a major
feat for a party set up only six years ago to oppose euro zone bailouts.

Choosing to bask in their achievements rather than linger on their
failure to win either state, AfD leaders in the Saxony parliament in
Dresden were brimming with confidence over beer, wine and a buffet of
mainly German sausages.

They believe their gains can destabilise the national coalition of
Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD).

'The CDU and SPD suffered losses. Our success here could trigger the
dismantling of the coalition in Berlin,' said Alice Weidel, leader of
the AfD's national parliamentary party.

'The other parties can't continue with business as usual.'

The AfD's success will certainly make coalition building difficult for
the CDU conservatives in Saxony, which they have governed for almost
three decades, and for the SPD in Brandenburg where the centre-left
party has ruled since 1990.

One of the SPD's interim leaders, Manuela Schwesig, expressed concern
about the AfD's strength.

'Our task must be to work out why so many chose to protest in this way.
We must all be aware that the AfD's results show we must take account of
the concerns of people in the East,' she said.

There was still relief within the two ruling parties, given that a few
months ago polls showed the AfD could become the strongest party in one
or both of the two East German states.

'Today's results are, in spite of the strong gains of the AfD in
comparison to the last elections, a relief,' said Andreas Umland, senior
Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation. 'They indicate
that, even in East Germany, the AfD remains a secondary political player.'

The AfD, though, was looking on the bright side.

'Today is an historic day,' Joerg Urban, AfD leader in Saxony where the
AfD won its biggest-ever share of the vote, told jubilant supporters in
the Dresden parliament.

'We had the biggest rise in support,' he said after preliminary results
put his party on just over 27 per cent, behind Merkel's CDU which shed
more than 7 points. 'This is our biggest ever victory.'

The AfD has drawn on voters' discontent with Merkel's coalition and
especially on her 2015 decision to let in refugees, many from war zones
in the Middle East and Africa.

On the streets of Dresden, whose historical centre is still being
renovated after it was almost completely obliterated shortly before the
end of World War Two, the mood was more subdued.

Fritz Busch, 82, a CDU voter born in Dresden who was 8 years old when
the city was firebombed, said he was worried the backlash against
Merkel's 2015 decision was tearing at German democracy.

'She had no choice,' he said. 'We lost two World Wars that we had
started and have a moral obligation to help and she understood that in
2015. AfD supporters simply don't get this'.

At the central train station at the other end of the city, one refugee
family from Libya was unaware of the elections.

'The AfD don't want us here,' said Ashraf al-Haitham, standing next to
his veiled wife and two children, adding: 'We'd rather live under AfD
rule in Germany than go back.'

(4) Far-left Protesters Spit on AfD Member

http://grainoftruth.ca/germany-far-left-protesters-spit-afd-member-during-argument/

Germany: Far-left Protesters Spit AfD Member During Argument
2018-09-25  1 COMMENT

During a speech by a member of the anti-Islamization Alternative for
Germany (AfD) party, foul-mouthed far-left protesters not only try to
drown him out, they spit at a man handing out flyers.

(5) Economist: The AfD’s strong showing in two state elections is a
worrying portent

https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/09/01/germanys-governing-parties-keep-the-far-right-at-bay-just

hill from the east

Germany’s governing parties keep the far right at bay—just

The AfD’s strong showing in two state elections is a worrying portent

Sep 1st 2019 | DRESDEN

WILD CHEERS seem an odd response when your party has just shed almost
one-fifth of its support. But that is how the Saxon branch of Germany’s
centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), gathered in a sweaty
restaurant in Dresden, hailed the result of a state election on
September 1st. The fear before the elections, in Saxony as well as
Brandenburg, another east German state, was that the hard-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD) might come first in one or both. In the
end, the centre held. In Saxony, a state it has run for 30 years, the
CDU took 32% of the vote, down from 39% in 2014 but five points ahead of
the AfD (whose supporters are pictured). In Brandenburg, a stronghold of
the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the party squeaked a three-point win
over the AfD.

Yet this was still a strong night for the AfD. Since the last elections,
in 2014, it has almost doubled its support in Brandenburg and tripled it
in Saxony (though it has flatlined in the past two years). It has
exploited an increasingly fragmented party system, thriving in east
Germany even as it has radicalised under the influence of an ultra-right
grouping known as the Flügel ("Wing"). It has mobilised previous
non-voters and disillusioned conservatives, in part by appealing to a
specifically east German sense of grievance: fully two-thirds of voters
in Saxony say that east Germans are "second-class citizens". Electoral
maps of Brandenburg and Saxony show their respective eastern halves
painted almost entirely in the blue of the AfD.

Shunned by all other parties, the AfD cannot hope to enter government in
either state. But its strength obliged mainstream politicians to
campaign against it, and its success will force them to assemble
unwieldy coalitions to keep it from power. That will strengthen the
party’s argument that it represents the only genuine political alternative.

Michael Kretschmer, Saxony_s CDU premier, will take the credit for
ensuring that the blue wave was kept in check. During a tireless
campaign, marked by endless beer-and-bratwurst sessions, he tilted
rightwards on topics like energy and migration while holding the line
against the AfD’s radicalism. His tactics sometimes tested the patience
of his party’s national leadership, not least when he met Vladimir Putin
in St Petersburg to urge an end to the sanctions imposed on Russia for
its aggression in Ukraine. He will now have to begin negotiations with
left-wing parties to form a viable coalition in Saxony, which will
antagonise the local party’s conservative base. But for now, his victory
looks like vindication.

Indeed, that the CDU and SPD look set to retain power in their
respective states will marginally relieve the pressure on the federal
government in Berlin, in which the two parties cohabit unhappily. But
the future of the "grand coalition" remains uncertain. Struggling in the
polls and riven by splits, the SPD is about to begin an internal contest
for a new leader, having defenestrated the previous one after a poor
European election result in May. Several of the candidates want the
party to walk out of government, an act that would probably trigger an
early election. The SPD will make its decision in December.

In the meantime, the AfD’s success in eastern Germany has fuelled an
anxious national conversation about the persistence of the country’s
east-west divide. November 9th will mark the 30th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin wall. What ought to be a moment to celebrate German
unity looks increasingly like an occasion to highlight its divisions.

(6) EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton nominated Pussy Riot for
the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights

https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1214&context=student_scholarship
Protecting Expression from the Protectors: Balancing Freedom of
expression with Public Sensitivities and Social Order in Western Nations
Lily Katherine Ericsson
Seton Hall University
Law School Student Scholarship
5-1-2013
Recommended Citation
Ericsson, Lily Katherine, "Protecting Expression from the Protectors:
Balancing Freedom of expression with Public Sensitivities and Social
Order in Western Nations" (2013). Law School Student Scholarship. 214.
https:/ / scholarship.shu.edu/studentscholarship/214
Lily Ericsson Comparative Constitutional Law Final Paper December 5,2012
Introduction
On February 21,2012, members of the all-female Russian feminist group
Pussy Riot staged a brief but incendiary "punk prayer service" on the
altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The performance
consisted of five members of the group, dressed in brightly colored
outfits with balaclavas covering their faces, bursting into the
cathedral to give an a cappella performance of their song entitled
"Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away."  The song included cries of "Holy Sh*t!"
and "B*tch, better believe in God" as well as more obscenities and
mocking statements directed at President Vladimir Putin and the Russian
Orthodox Church.  The performance did not last longer than a minute, as
officials quickly escorted the women out of the cathedral.  While the
group escaped without arrest, several suspected members were later
detained by the police, and on March 3rd two were arrested - Maria
Alyokhin and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.  A third member, Yekaterina
Samutsevich, was arrested on March 15th.  This "punk prayer" was the
last of a number of provocative public protests held by Pussy Riot
preceding the Russian presidential election, in which Putin sought and
won his third term as the Kremlin.
Alyokin, Tolokonnikova, and Samutsevich were arrested for "gross
violation of public order and religious hatred’"    and were
subsequently charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,  a
crime punishable by up to seven years in prison.  After a high-profile
trial before Moscow District Court Judge Marina Syrova, the three women
were convicted of hooliganism on August 17th, and sentenced to two years
in a penal colony.  Judge Syrova stated that the women posed a danger to
society through their "grave crimes," including "the insult and
humiliation of the Christian faith and inciting religious hatred."
The "punk prayer" was internationally publicized via a video posted by
Pussy Riot on the media website YouTube.  The video, a doctored version
of the event with a recording of the group’s anti-Putin song dubbed over
and clips of another church performance spliced in,  made its way across
the globe almost instantly. Reactions to the event, both national and
personal, quickly followed.
Western government officials, organizations, celebrities, and citizens
flooded the press with criticisms of Pussy Riot’s censorship and
punishment, citing freedom of expression and fundamental human rights.
Protests and rallies in support of Pussy Riot were held in dozens of
cities globally, including New York, Paris, London, Vienna, and
Helsinki.    In the United States, the Obama administration was
"disappointed" by the verdict, and voiced concerns about the negative
impact on freedom of expression in Russia.  The New York Times portrayed
Pussy Riot as a feminist punk band inspired by the American "riot grrl"
movement of the 90’s, and likened them to the famed Guerilla Girls of
the American art world.  One young supporter was both inspired and
astonished by the situation: "It’s cruel—they’re in jail for two years,
and they just spoke their minds [...] I feel like if people did this
more ... women would be more respected."  The U.S. News presented a
romanticized portrayal of the jailed Pussy Riot members and their
participation in both Pussy Riot and the even more extremist protest
group Voina, lauding the women as brilliant and brave artists fighting
against a repressive government machine.
Across the Atlantic, Western European countries also vocalized their
dissent. British Foreign Minister Alistair Burt questioned Russia’s
commitment to protecting fundamental rights and freedom, citing repeated
requests by the British for "the Russians to protect human rights,
including the right to freedom of expression, and apply the rule of law
in a non-discriminatory and proportionate way." France expressed
disapproval via an official statement on its Diplomacy website: "France
supports worldwide principles of freedom of expression and opinion. In
this context, the verdict so far seems particularly disproportionate,
considering the minor facts alleged against them."  In Germany,
Chancellor Angela Merkel described the womens’ sentence as "excessively
harsh" and "not compatible with the European values of the rule of law
and democracy to which Russia, as a member of the Council of Europe, has
committed itself."
International organizations had even stronger reactions to the verdict.
The European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called the
verdict "politically motivated intimidation," and in response nominated
Pussy Riot for the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights. [...]

(7) Sakharov Prize awarded to opponents of Maduro, Assad, Gaddafi,
Putin, Iran, Castro, Mubarak, China, Myanmar, Belarus and Turkey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakharov_Prize

Laureates

Nelson Mandela was the inaugural winner of the prize, together with
Anatoly Marchenko.

The awarding ceremony of the 1990 prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi
inside the Parliament's Strasbourg hemicycle, in 2013. Suu Kyi could not
collect it before as she had been under house arrest for decades.

Year Recipient Nationality Notes Reference

1988 Nelson Mandela South Africa Anti-apartheid activist and later
President of South Africa [12]
Anatoly Marchenko (posthumously)  Soviet Union Soviet dissident, author
and human rights activist  [12]
1989 Alexander Dubcek Czechoslovakia Slovak politician, attempted to
reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring [12]
1990 Aung San Suu Kyi Burma Opposition politician and a former General
Secretary of the National League for Democracy [13]
1991 Adem Demaçi Kosovo[a] Kosovo Albanian Politician and long-term
political prisoner [12]
1992 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Argentina Association of Argentine
mothers whose children disappeared during the Dirty War [13]
1993 Oslobo?enje Bosnia and Herzegovina Popular newspaper that defended
Bosnia and Herzegovina as a multi-ethnic state [13]
1994 Taslima Nasrin Bangladesh Ex-doctor, feminist author [13]
1995 Leyla Zana Turkey Politician of Kurdish descent from Southeastern
Turkey, who was imprisoned for 15 years for being member of PKK. [12]
1996 Wei Jingsheng China An activist in the Chinese democracy movement [13]
1997 Salima Ghezali Algeria Journalist and writer, an activist of
women's rights, human rights and democracy in Algeria [13]
1998 Ibrahim Rugova Kosovo Kosovo Albanian politician, the first
President of Kosovo [12]
1999 Xanana Gusmão East Timor Former militant who was the first
President of East Timor [14]
2000 ¡Basta Ya! Spain Organisation uniting individuals of various
political positions against terrorism [15]
2001 Nurit Peled-Elhanan Israel Peace activist [12]
Izzat Ghazzawi Palestine Writer, professor
Dom Zacarias Kamwenho Angola Archbishop and peace activist
2002 Oswaldo Payá Cuba Political activist and dissident [16]
2003 Kofi Annan Ghana Nobel Peace Prize recipient and seventh
Secretary-General of the United Nations [12] United Nations N/A
(International)
2004 Belarusian Association of Journalists Belarus Non-governmental
organisation "aiming to ensure freedom of speech and rights of receiving
and distributing information and promoting professional
standards of journalism" [17]
2005 Ladies in White Cuba Opposition movement, relatives of jailed
dissidents [18]
Reporters Without Borders N/A (International) France-based
non-governmental organisation advocating freedom of the press [18]
Hauwa Ibrahim Nigeria Human rights lawyer [18]
2006 Alaksandar Milinkievic? Belarus Politician chosen by United
Democratic Forces of Belarus as the joint candidate of the opposition in
the presidential elections of 2006 [19]
2007 Salih Mahmoud Osman Sudan Human rights lawyer [13]
2008 Hu Jia China Activist and dissident [20]
2009 Memorial Russia International civil rights and historical society [21]
2010 Guillermo Fariñas Cuba Doctor, journalist and political dissident [22]
2011 Asmaa Mahfouz Egypt Five representatives of the Arab people, in
recognition and support of their drive for freedom and human rights. [23]
Ahmed al-Senussi Libya
Razan Zaitouneh Syria
Ali Farzat
Mohamed Bouazizi (posthumously) Tunisia
2012 Jafar Panahi Iran Iranian activists, Sotoudeh is a lawyer and
Panahi is a film director. [24][25]
Nasrin Sotoudeh
2013 Malala Yousafzai Pakistan Campaigner for women's rights and
education [26]
2014 Denis Mukwege Democratic Republic of the Congo Gynecologist
treating victims of gang rape [27]
2015 Raif Badawi Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian writer and activist and the
creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals [28]
2016 Nadia Murad Basee Iraq Yazidi human rights activists and former
abductees of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [29]
Lamiya Aji Bashar
2017 Democratic Opposition in Venezuela Venezuela Members of the
country's National Assembly and all political prisoners as listed by
Foro Penal Venezolano represented by Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma,
Daniel Ceballos [es], Yon Goicoechea, Lorent Saleh, Alfredo Ramos [es]
and Andrea González. The award was seen as rewarding the "courage of
student activists and protesters in face of repression by Nicolas
Maduro's government".[30] [31]
2018 Oleg Sentsov Ukraine Film director, symbol of the struggle for the
release of political prisoners held in Russia and around the world

This page was last edited on 9 August 2019, at 14:20 (UTC).