The Tulip Award for Human Rights Defenders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands has this year added a new element: an on-line poll to help select the winner. Anyone can go to http://www.government.nl/ministries/bz/news/2013/10/09/online-poll-for-human-rights-prize.html and choose which of the 44 nominees deserves the prize most. It closes on Friday 18 October
According to foreign minister Frans Timmermans, ‘We must find new ways of promoting human rights worldwide while also reaching new groups of people. I hope a lot of people will enjoy taking part in the poll, and will cast their vote for the nominee of their choice. Every one of these human rights defenders deserves our attention and support.’
The nomination round yielded 44 nominees from more than 20 countries. The on-line poll will produce a top three. A second top three will be chosen by a panel of experts from the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL), which is organising the contest; the panel will award ‘wild cards’ to nominees based on the quality of their entries, making it easier for nominees with smaller networks to reach the final. From these six winners, an independent jury will select a final top three, from whom the Minister will choose the eventual winner.
The €100,000 prize is given on Wednesday 11 December. The bronze Human Rights Tulip statue below was sculpted by Huub and Adelheid Kortekaas.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
October 12, 2014 at 18:53
[…] Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Reporter of the Toronto Star, reports on 9 October 2014 that a Canadian-based human rights research and technology lab is shortlisted for the Netherlands Human Rights Tulip award which is partly crowdsourced, with voting on the Internet (now closed). An international jury headed by former UN Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue will make the final selection from six top picks, three of them chosen by the public. [see: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/award/tulip-award and https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/tulip-award-introduces-novelty-on-line-voting-for-human-righ…] […]
LikeLike