German Prize for civil society in Azerbaijan

In Germany, in the town of Esslingen am Neckar, on May 2, a discussion was held on ways to support the democratic forces of the countries of Western Europe, the institutions of civil society in authoritarian countries, and of showing solidarity with the international democratic community struggling against dictatorial regimes.

The discussions were confined to the annual award ceremony for human rights to activists named after Theodore Hacker. This year the prize was awarded to the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy in Azerbaijan Leila Yunus.

Opening the debate, the Mayor of Esslingen am Neckar said the appointment of the international award named after Theodore Hacker supports fighters with dictatorships around the world. The name of Theodore Hacker, who had a courageous resistance to Hitler's Nazism, was immortalized in his home institution of the award, which is awarded since 1995 to people fighting for the ideals of democracy and humanism. Among the winners were the representatives of Belarus, Turkey, Algeria, Mexico, Rwanda, Russia, and Iran.

The mechanism for selecting the winner is as follows: Mayor urges citizens to submit proposals on the names of candidates to the Department of Culture of the city authorities. At the second stage, the cultural department collects detailed information about each of the candidates and forwards all materials to the Board of Deputies of the city. They select the worthiest ones and re-direct them to the Department of Culture with a request to collect additional information. Finally, at the final stage, all the collected materials are sent back to the Board of Deputies, where a final vote is held and the name of the winner is called. The entire selection process takes 1.5 years.

Yunus, the laureate in 2013, thanked them for the high honor and regarded the award as support to civil society in Azerbaijan by the international democratic community.

The awards ceremony will take place on May 5. On the same day, Yunus will present a report on the situation in Azerbaijan is a presidential election year in the political forum, moderated by Georg Restle, ARD commentator and the journalist Suzanne Stiefel. The discussion will also be attended by guests from Azerbaijan: Hikmet Hajizadeh, Arif Yunusov, Mehman Aliyev, Fuad Agayev, Azad Isazadeh and Matanat Azizova, the press office of Institute of Peace and Democracy reported. -0 -

 

Leave a review

Politics

Follow us on social networks

News Line