On Thursday September 26, all European political groups presented their candidates for the Sakharov Prize, the prestigious award given each year by the European Parliament to defenders of human rights and freedom of thought.
On the far right, the Patriots and small Europe group of sovereign nations opted for Elon Musk, the fervent supporter of Donald Trump and controversial boss of the social network X, Tesla and SpaceX.
Elon Musk is, however, in open conflict with the European Commission, which could impose a very heavy fine on X for possible violations of its new regulation on digital services.
“It’s not a snub” at the Commission, assures MEP (RN, Patriots) Thierry Mariani. Elon Musk ” artwork “ with X for one “truly free and independent debate”while the “freedom of expression is threatened by woke ideology and fundamentalist Islamism”he believes.
ECR, the group to which Giorgia Meloni's far-right party Fratelli d'Italia belongs, for its part proposed Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the Venezuelan opposition candidate during the July presidential election. The European Parliament recently voted in Strasbourg a symbolic resolution to recognize it as “the legitimate, democratically elected president”facing Nicolas Maduro, proclaimed winner.
On the right, the EPP, the leading force in Parliament, also chose him, as well as the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado.
The centrists of Renew and the social democrats on the left advocate for Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, two Israeli and Palestinian organizations working together for peace in the Middle East. The Greens support Goubad Ibadoghlou, an economist and activist in detention in Azerbaijan. The radical “left” group proposes the “journalists in Palestine”including several journalists who died covering the war in Gaza.
A vote to select three finalists will take place on October 17, before the winner is announced on October 24 and an awards ceremony on December 18.
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Last year, the prize was awarded to Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who died in 2022, and to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement bloodily repressed by the government in Iran.
Source: Lemonde
