Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders

On 9 January 2019 Swedish news paper The Local reported: “American whistleblower wins Sweden’s Olof Palme Prize“. Daniel Ellsberg, born in 1931, is best known for releasing the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study which revealed that several US administrations had misled the public over the war in Vietnam, to the New York Times. He was charged with espionage and conspiracy, but the charges were later dismissed. “Regardless of such consequences, his decision led to the removal of a mendacious government, a shortening of an illegal war, and an untold number of saved lives,” read a statement by the Olof Palme Foundation. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/05/27/5-june-stockholm-breakfast-seminar-on-the-importance-of-whistleblowers/

“More than four decades later Daniel Ellsberg again takes on the Pentagon’s secret war plans. He warns us of a nuclear holocaust, caused by the refusal of the nine nuclear states to comply with the binding commitment of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to further the goals of a nuclear-free world.” The Foundation said it will award the prize at a ceremony on January 30th in Stockholm “for his profound humanism and exceptional moral courage”.

For more on this and other awards: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/olof-palme-prize