16-11-2010.
The Human Rights Foundation,
(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- NEW YORK (November 16, 2010) – The Human
Rights Foundation, is pleased to announce that 2010 Oslo Freedom Forum
speaker and Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez was awarded the inaugural CEPOS
Freedom Award, in the amount of $50,000, by the independent Danish think
tank, CEPOS. Sánchez, author of the world-renowned blog Generación Y,
was nominated for the award by HRF President Thor Halvorssen.
The Freedom Award is granted to individuals who demonstrate a principled
and steadfast commitment to the values and ideas of individual freedom
and basic human rights.
"CEPOS could not have selected a more deserving recipient for this
prize," said Halvorssen. "Sánchez is a remarkable woman who has
repeatedly overcome great obstacles and risked daunting consequences to
make her voice heard, despite a dictatorship that systematically
strangles freedom of expression."
Through her blog, Sánchez provides a window into the hard-hitting
reality of everyday life in Cuba. Her elegant and thoughtful criticism
of the totalitarian state has earned her the 2008 Ortega y Gasset Prize
for Journalism and the 2009 Maria Moors Cabot Prize. She was named one
of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2008,
and was selected as a 2010 World Press Freedom Hero by the International
Press Institute.
"Despite the huge personal costs, Yoani Sánchez has shown amazing
courage by expressing her honest and personal opinion of the society she
currently lives in. Single-handedly and at great personal expense, she
has managed to keep focus on one of the world's most suffocating
dictatorships. CEPOS wishes to show admiration of her courage and
dedication by awarding her this prize," said CEPOS Director Martin Ågerup.
CEPOS has invited Sánchez to receive the Freedom Award at a ceremony in
Copenhagen in the near future.
"We hope that the Cuban government will give her the right to travel to
Denmark to receive the prize in person," stated Halvorssen.
HRF is an international nonpartisan organization devoted to defending
human rights in the Americas. It centers its work on the twin concepts
of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals
include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak
freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter
their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal
treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to
participate in the governments of their countries; HRF's ideals likewise
find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right
to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and
coercion in matters of conscience. HRF does not support nor condone
violence. HRF's International Council includes former prisoners of
conscience Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Václav Havel, Mutabar
Tadjibaeva, Ramón J. Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu.
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=30570
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