AFP, Strasbourg, France :
Europe’s top rights body, the Council of Europe, has nominated a jailed academic from China’s Uighur minority, Ilham Tohti, for one of the continent’s top human rights awards.
The economics professor who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 after being convicted of separatism, “has worked for over 20 years on the situation of the Uighur minority and on fostering inter-ethnic dialogue and understanding in China,” the Council’s parliamentary assembly said in a statement after meeting Monday in Prague.
Tohti is one of three nominees for the 2019 Vaclav Havel prize, along with Tajik human rights lawyer Buzurgmehr Yorov and a youth group promoting post-war reconciliation in the Balkans.
The winner of the 60,000-euro prize will be announced on September 30 in Strasbourg, home of the 47-country Council of Europe which founded the the European Court of Human Rights.
