22/08/2013 Prizes
Strasbourg, 22.08.2013 – The Selection Panel of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, chaired by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Jean-Claude Mignon, and comprising six independent figures(*) known for expertise in the field of human rights, will meet on 26 August 2013 in the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague to determine the three nominees which will be shortlisted from the candidatures received.
The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which aims to reward outstanding civil society action in the defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, is awarded each year by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in partnership with the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation and is worth €60 000.
The Prize honours the memory of Václav Havel, playwright, opponent of totalitarianism, architect of the velvet revolution of 1989, President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, and an enduring symbol of opposition to despotism.
In a second meeting, which will take place in Strasbourg on 29 September 2013, the Selection Panel will designate the Prizewinner, which will subsequently be announced by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly in the Assembly Chamber in plenary, on the first day of the Autumn session on 30 September 2013, at 12.30 pm.
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PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon, Martin Palouš, member of the Václav Havel Library Board and František Janouch, Chairman of the Board of the Charta 77 Foundation will give a press conference after the selection meeting in Prague on 26 August 2013, at 4.00 pm at the Václav Havel Library (Katerinska 18, 120 00 Prague 2, Tel: +420 222 220 112).
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(*)
• František Janouch, Chairman of the Board of the Charta 77 Foundation
• Thomas Hammarberg, former Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, former Secretary General of Amnesty International
• Nuala Mole, Senior Lawyer, founder of the AIRE Centre
• Marek Antoni Nowicki, Human Rights Lawyer, Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Advisory Panel in Kosovo
• Martin Palouš, member of the Václav Havel Library Board
• Christos Pourgourides, former Member of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus, former PACE Chairperson of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.
PACE contact: Markus Adelsbach, tel. +33 6 30 49 67 79
Václav Havel Library contact: Marta Smolíková, tel. +420 603 897 582