US whistleblower Snowden wins Swedish rights prize

SWEDEN - Fugitive US intelligence agent Edward Snowden was jointly awarded a Swedish human rights award on Wednesday for "revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance", the prize's organisers said.

The Right Livelihood Honorary Prize is awarded annually "to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today".

The Stockholm-based foundation awarding the prize said Snowden had shown "courage and skill in revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance violating basic democratic processes and constitutional rights".

As an honorary award winner, Snowden -- who has lived in exile in Russia since 2013 -- will not receive the customary 500,000 kronor (54,500 euros, $70,000) prize money, but the foundation said it would "fund legal support for him" without disclosing the amount.

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

After the winners were announced, Sweden's ministry of foreign affairs said the annual Right Livelihood press conference could not take place in one of its buildings.

Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that it had been a personal decision of Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. The minister denied the claim.

SVT reported on its website: "Instead, the foreign ministry points out that it is important to highlight that it is an independent organisation. Bildt also refuses to comment on what he thinks about Edward Snowden winning the prize."

Bildt, who is known for his US sympathies, has never criticised Snowden in public, but Swedish media reported that he opposed the involvement of the former analyst in a Stockholm conference about freedom on the Internet in May -- an allegation the minister also denied.

The other three prize winners -- who will each receive 500,000 kronor to further their work -- were Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahanger, Sri Lankan rights activist Basil Fernando and US environmentalist Bill McKibbben.

"We want to send a message of urgent warning that these trends –- illegal mass surveillance of ordinary citizens, the violation of human and civil rights, violent manifestations of religious fundamentalism, and the decline of the planet's life-supporting systems –- are very much upon us already," said Ole von Uexkull, the foundation's director in a statement.

Swedish-German philatelist Jakob von Uexkull founded the donor-funded prize in 1980 after the Nobel Foundation refused to create awards honouring efforts in the fields of the environment and international development.

The Right Livelihood Award Foundation often calls its distinction the "alternative Nobel prize".

The awards will be formally handed over at a ceremony in the Swedish parliament on December 1.

AFP