Engineer Issa Ismail Amro, founder of the Youth Against Settlements Gathering in Hebron, won the Alternative Nobel Prize for the year 2024, according to what the committee supervising the prize announced in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, today, Thursday.
The committee said in a press release published this morning in Stockholm that it had awarded the prize to Amr “in appreciation of his dedication to defending the rights of his people, his steadfastness in the face of occupation and settlement, and his success in reaching out to global communities to expose human rights violations.”
He won with Amr and three other people in the field of environment and human rights from the Philippines, Mozambique and Britain. The four winners were chosen from among 176 candidates from 72 countries in the world.
The four winners will share the prize of 1 million Swedish kronor, which is awarded each year to people who work to ensure the foundations of human life.
The Alternative Nobel Prize, or Right Livelihood Award, i
s described as the ‘harvest of a lifetime’, and is awarded annually to four figures in the fields of (human rights, sustainable development, health, education, peace, and environmental protection). It is sponsored by the Swedish Parliament, and its board of directors is made up of a large committee of academics and politicians from around the world, and is considered the most important human rights award in the world.
The idea of ??the award goes back to the Swedish-German journalist and stamp collector Jakob von, who created it in 1980, after he saw that the Nobel Prize was too narrow in its scope and dealt with the interests of industrialized countries, considering it necessary to recognize those who work to directly confront the challenges in their societies.
Von then sold his works to raise the original funding. Since then, individual donors have funded the prizes, which aim to honor and support those who contribute exemplary and practical solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Since 1985, t
he prize has been known as the Alternative Nobel Prize and is awarded at a formal ceremony held annually in Stockholm at the Swedish Parliament.
Engineer Issa Amro is the second Palestinian to receive this award in the field of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and the fourth Arab. It was previously received by the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in 1980, the Egyptian scientist in applied chemistry Ibrahim Abu Al-Aish in 2003, and others.
Engineer Issa Amro said after winning the award, ‘I consider my winning the award a victory for the rights of the Palestinian people to justice, equality, freedom and self-determination, and a victory for the just Palestinian cause. This award came during the most difficult period that the Palestinian people are experiencing in all places of their presence, and unfortunately I cannot celebrate this award. I
dedicate this award to the women and children of Palestine, especially my family in the Gaza Strip, who are suffering from ethnic cleansing and the war of e
xtermination and are paying a heavy price that no one can bear. I dedicate it to my family in the West Bank and Jerusalem, who are suffering from the policy of displacement, injustice and slow killing, and I dedicate it to the people of Hebron who are steadfast in the face of the occupation and settlement in the closed areas.’
Amro added, ‘My winning the award with Youth Against Settlements means Palestine’s victory morally, politically and legally in the world.’
Activist Issa Amro won several local and international awards, including the Harvard University Award for Best Global Defender, and he also won the Unified Global Media Award. He received several honors and participated in international events as a representative of Palestine, and was honored in the European Parliament and in several international countries for his work in the field of human rights in Palestine.
Source: Maan News Agency