U.S. conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has been nominated posthumously for the European Union’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, two weeks after he was assassinated throughout a college occasion in Utah.
The nomination was put ahead by the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) Group within the European Parliament, which incorporates Germany’s Different für Deutschland Occasion.
The Sakharov Prize, named after Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, has been awarded yearly since 1988 to people or teams defending human rights and elementary freedoms.
Previous laureates embrace Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Denis Mukwege, and Nadia Murad. The award carries an endowment of fifty,000 euros ($54,000).
ESN Co-President René Aust introduced the nomination on Sept. 10, the day of Kirk’s loss of life.
ESN member Marc Jongen, a lawmaker from Different für Deutschland, on Sept. 22 then formally launched the nomination within the European Parliament, describing Kirk as “the most worthy person to receive the Sakharov Prize.”
“In a time where a fanatical wokist left is attempting to preserve its fading cultural hegemony through cancel culture, violence against dissenters, and state censorship, cynically disguised as defense of democracy, Charlie Kirk has sought open dialogue and exchange of arguments even with his most bitter opponents,” Jongen informed his fellow EU lawmakers.
Kirk, 31, was cofounder and CEO of Turning Level USA, a conservative pupil group launched in 2012. In slightly greater than a decade, he turned a distinguished determine in campus-based political activism and an in depth ally of U.S President Donald Trump.
He additionally hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show,” a broadly adopted podcast.
He was fatally shot on Sept. 10 whereas talking at Utah Valley College. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old pupil, has been charged with Kirk’s homicide.
Costs in opposition to Robinson embrace aggravated homicide, felony discharge of a firearm inflicting critical bodily damage, two obstruction of justice counts, two witness tampering expenses, and a violent offense dedicated within the presence of a kid, Utah County Lawyer Jeff Grey has stated.
Talking at Kirk’s memorial occasion on Sept. 21, Trump stated the activist was “violently killed because he spoke for freedom and justice, for God, country, for reason, and for common sense.”
Nominees
This 12 months’s shortlist options a number of high-profile figures and actions.
The European Folks’s Occasion and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group nominated Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist sentenced to eight years in jail in Belarus for criticizing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The Socialists and Democrats Group, alongside The Left, put ahead journalists and humanitarian help staff within the Gaza Strip, represented by the Palestinian Press Affiliation, the Palestine Purple Crescent Society, and the U.N. Reduction and Works Company.
Different nominees embrace French Algerian author Boualem Sansal, jailed in Algeria for “undermining national unity”; Serbian college students who organized mass anti-corruption protests after a lethal constructing collapse; Budapest Pleasure, which defied a authorities ban to stage the most important march in its historical past; and Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, together with the nation’s pro-democracy protest motion.
The nomination course of closed on Sept. 23, and lawmakers will vote on three finalists on Oct. 16. Political group leaders and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola are set to decide on the laureate on Oct. 22.
The award ceremony will happen in Strasbourg, France, on Dec. 16.
Awarded collectively to Mandela and Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko in its first 12 months, the Sakharov Prize is taken into account the EU’s highest honor for human rights.
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