Darfur lawyer Osman nominated for Andrei Sakharov Prize

From Panapress (thanks to Sudanese Online)...

A lawyer from Sudan's Western Darfur region, Safif [Mahmoud] Osman, has been nominated for the Andrei Sakharov Prize for [Freedom of Thought], due to be awarded by the European Parliament in October, an official source has disclosed here [Brussels].

The Sudanese human-rights lawyer is famous for his legal assistance to detainees facing [the] death penalty, and to the victims of human-rights violations in Darfur, [an] EU Parliament spokesman said here.

He noted that the lawyer, who had been arrested on three occasions and had spent 7 months in jail without charge, was a strong advocate of the deployment of a [UN] peacekeeping force to Darfur, which has been plagued by an armed conflict for [four] years, killing hundreds [of thousands] and displacing millions.

Osman's nomination for the Prize was filed by five European MPs, among them [former] EU Parliament Speaker Josep Borrell who, according to the spokesman, had met with the Sudanese lawyer during a European delegation's visit to Khartoum.

Other candidates nominated for the Prize include Russian journalist Anna [Politkovkaya], who was killed in 2006 in Moscow "for her criticisms against the regime [of] President Vladimir Putin".

The EU Parliament will name the winner of the Prize next October.

Nigerian lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim won the 2006 award, which has a cash reward of [50,000] euros, for her efforts in defending Muslim women sentenced to death under [...] Islamic Sharia law.

The prize was first won by former South African President Nelson Mandela in 1998, for fighting against apartheid in his country.

The second African winner of the prize [was] Zacharias Kamwenho, archbishop in [Lubango], Angola, in 2001 for his work towards national reconciliation at a time when the Angolan rebels were fighting against soldiers loyal to the government in [Luanda].

In 2003, the prize went to then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the UN for [their] various efforts to achieve peace in the world.