In an important announcement, Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who tragically passed away while in custody last year and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk have been nominated for the European Union’s most esteemed human rights award.
Mahsa Amini, a symbol of courage and resilience, has received strong support from the three largest political groups in the European Parliament.
She is now the leading contender for the Sakharov Prize, which will be bestowed in December.
Elon Musk, the well-known figure behind X (formerly Twitter), Tesla, and SpaceX, was nominated by the small far-right faction within the legislature.
In addition to Amini and Musk, several other individuals were nominated by different parliamentary groups.
These include activists from Afghanistan, Georgia, Nicaragua, Poland, El Salvador, and the United States.
Mahsa Amini, at the tender age of 22, tragically passed away on September 16, 2022, while in the custody of Iran’s religious police.
She was detained for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women in the Islamic Republic.
To prevent potential protests marking the anniversary of her death, Iranian authorities detained her father and cautioned her family against publicly commemorating the occasion.
Furthermore, they restricted access to her gravesite.
Nevertheless, Iranians in major cities, including Tehran, voiced their dissent against the government, and similar rallies occurred worldwide in cities such as Paris, Sydney, Toronto, and New York.
Amini has become a symbol of the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran, representing a significant challenge to the clerical-led government.
The EU lawmakers who nominated Amini for the Sakharov Prize also support this movement.
Elon Musk’s nomination came from the Identity and Democracy group in the parliament, which includes nationalist and extreme-right members.
Musk has positioned himself as a defender of free speech but has faced criticism from some human rights organizations for allowing increased anti-Semitic and other hate speech on X.
He has also generated controversy for permitting figures like Donald Trump, the former U.S. president, and other far-right personalities back onto X.
