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The Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel, was awarded on Monday to three jailed Saudi human rights defenders and two Latin American anti-corruption crusaders. The prize foundation said the 1 million kronor ($113,400) cash award for 2018 would be shared by Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani and Waleed Abu al-Khair “for their visionary and courageous efforts, guided by universal human rights principles, to reform the totalitarian political system in Saudi Arabia.” The 2018 honorary award was given to Thelma Aldana of Guatemala and Colombia’s Ivan Velasquez “for their innovative work in exposing abuse of power and prosecuting corruption.” Created in 1980, the annual Right Livelihood Award honours efforts that the prize founder, Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull, felt were being ignored by the Nobel Prize. Al-Qahtani and Al-Hamid were founding activists of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, known by the acronym HASEM. In 2013, they were sentenced to 10 and 11 years, respectively. Soon after, other verdicts followed against a dozen members. The sentences came in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-life/3-saudi-rights-activists-bag-alternative-nobel/article25032792.ece
