Sudan rights lawyer awarded top European prize

December 11, 2007 (STRASBOURG, France) — The European Parliament on Tuesday awarded its top human rights prize to Sudanese lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman for his work in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Osman was the unanimous choice of the leaders of the parliament’s political groups, for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, whose previous recipients have included Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Osman, an opposition member of the Sudanese parliament who works for the Sudan Organisation Against Torture, has for years defended and given free legal aid to hundreds of victims of rights abuses in Darfur.

At a ceremony in Strasbourg The European Parliament hailed Osman’s work with the victims of conflict.

“I have seen thousands of people who have been tortured. I have seen hundreds of women and young girls who have been victims of sexual abuse. I have seen the four million who have been forcibly displaced from their homes,” Osaman told a news conference”

“The victims feel disappointed … They are waiting to hear from you, the people of Europe. Your leaders have been talking tough about the policies of the Sudanese Government in Darfur. But so far we haven’t seen any concrete steps”.

The prize is named after leading Soviet rights activist Andrei Sakharov. It was awarded last year to Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich.

The two other finalists for this year’s award were murdered anti-Kremlin journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Chinese activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan.

Osman himself was imprisoned by the Sudanese government for over seven months in 2004 without a charge or a trial. “His fight against injustice has had a personal cost; members of his family have been killed and tortured,” the parliament said in announcing the award.

In November 2005, Osman was awarded Human Rights Watch’s highest honour for his work in Sudan.

Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted in violence in Darfur since mostly non-Arabs took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglect.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000 and says the West exaggerates the conflict.

Last week Osman was in Brussels and demanded the bloc take a more active role in resolving the Darfur crisis. He said the EU could not simply stand by during “genocide” and urged troops be committed for a Darfur peace force.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week a plan to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Sudan’s Darfur region was at risk because U.N. members were failing to contribute essential helicopters.

(Reuters)