A Norwegian human rights body, which has anticipated the selection of the Nobel Peace Prize winner four times with its own award, chose a <NOBR>Chechen</NOBR> lawyer on Thursday to receive its annual Rafto prize, Reuters reported.
The Thorolf Rafto Foundation for Human Rights honored Lida Yusupova for “her brave and unrelenting efforts to document human rights violations and act as a spokeswoman for the forgotten victims of the war in Chechnya”, it said.
Yusupova, 44, has been office director in Grozny of Russia’s oldest human rights organization Memorial, it said. In 2004 she was also awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights.
The foundation said it hoped its 50,000 crowns ($7,853) award would help refocus world attention on the conflict in Chechnya where tens of thousands have died in a decade of violence between Chechen separatists and Russian forces.
Four Rafto laureates, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, South Korea’s Kim Dae-Jung and Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, subsequently received the Nobel Peace Prize, Reuters added.
The Rafto prize was established in 1986 in memory of Thorolf Rafto (1922-1986), a Norwegian academic who worked during the Cold War for human rights in communist Eastern Europe.
Yusupova will receive her Rafto prize in Bergen, Norway, on Nov. 6. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/09/22/chechenlawyer.shtml
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