Ali Ferzat Nominated For The Sakharov Prize

According to a story at a Tunisian business news portal -- I'll assume it will have broken wider by the time you're reading this -- the Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat was one of several Arab Spring figures nominated for this year's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. That's an award named after the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov that's been given out by the European Parliament since 1988. Nelson Mandela was its first winner, while Kofi Annan and the French-based advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontieres are past recipients. The nominees are usually named around now, with a winner declared in October and the award presented on or around December 10, celebrated as Human Rights Day. The winner takes home a cash prize worth approximately 80,000 USD.

Ferzat, one of his region's best-known and one of the world's most respected cartoonists, was assaulted on August 25 by a group of thugs critical of his work against the current Syrian regime and its various draconian policies and actions directed towards protesters during this year of widespread regional political uprisings. As far as I know, Ferzat remains at rest in his Syrian home. An exhibition of his work in honor of his recent travails recently went up in Cairo.

a Ferzat cartoon lampooning his government's idea of dialogue
 
posted 1:45 am PST | Permalink
 

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