Asma wins prestigious rights award

Former SCBA president, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden along with 3 others jointly awarded Swedish human rights award

STOCKHOLM:

Former Supreme Court Bar Association president Asma Jahangir and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden along with three others were jointly awarded a Swedish human rights award on Wednesday.

Asma Jahangir has been honoured “for defending, protecting and promoting human rights in Pakistan and more widely, often in very difficult and complex situations and at great personal risk,” the Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation said in a statement. This is the first time a Pakistani has been honoured by the foundation.

The prize, known as the ‘Alternate Nobel Prize’, is awarded annually “to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”, according to the foundation.

As an honorary award-winner, Edward Snowden – who has lived in exile in Russia since 2013 – would not receive the customary 500,000 kronor prize money.

Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of the Guardian newspaper, which first published details of global US electronic surveillance based on Snowden’s leaks, also won an honorary award for “responsible journalism in the public interest”.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2014.