lesoir.be.- Chance is sometimes cruel. In a European Parliament turned upside down by a corruption scandal, representatives of the Ukrainian people walked down the steps of the Strasbourg hemicycle last week to receive Europe’s highest human rights award. Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola pledged her support as she presented them with the Sakharov Prize 2022.
For the past two weeks, Morocco and Qatar have been suspected of buying members of the European Parliament to influence decisions. The European Parliament’s version of the “Nobel Peace Prize” is also under suspicion as the Sakharov Prize is in the crosshairs of investigators.
If this year, no candidate could frankly interest the two countries, the 2021 vintage has been subject to controversy. Among the candidates at the time, Sultana Khaya, a Saharawi activist, is a hot potato for the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
In simple terms, each political group in the European Parliament can submit a candidate for the Sakharov Prize. This is followed by a series of votes, behind closed doors, between the Development and Foreign Affairs Committees, several of whose members are named in the investigation. That year, two candidates ended up in a tie. They were competing for a place in the final of the Sakharov Prize: Sultana Khaya (supported by the group The Left) and the Bolivian Jeanine Anez (proposed by the far-right parties Fratelli d’Italia and Vox, in Spain, members of the ECR group).
Voting instructions
“A new vote was decided, which was inexplicably delayed by an hour (there was no formal justification for this)”, says MEP Miguel Urban (The Left, Podemos). “And the Socialist group, against all expectations, gave a voting instruction to its MEPs, by email, to vote for the far right candidate.” As the EU Observer and El Confidencial media pointed out at the time, an email was indeed sent, citing “tactical reasons” for siding with the ECR group. A spokeswoman for the S&D group confirmed this, without giving details.
The S&D group had proposed to give the Sakharov prize to “Afghan women”, a month after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. “This alliance with the far right is politically inexplicable and very difficult to understand and explain”, says Miguel Urban. “And their excuse of not splitting votes in the final round (to favour their candidates, editor’s note) is not credible. Anyone who knows how the Sakharov Prize is elected knows that they had no chance of winning. “It is extremely rare for socialists to vote in favour of ECR,” confirms a source in the Renew group, “They would be accused by The Left of not being left-wing enough. “In the last round of voting, the Afghan women were supported by the S&D, the Greens and The Left. This progressive alliance lost to a liberal-conservative majority supporting Alexei Navalny,” says the S&D spokesperson.
Lost hope
“In fact, as human rights defenders in Western Sahara, we lost hope years ago in the European institutions, the Parliament, the European Commission and the rest of the institutions”, reacts Sultana Khaya, who has been hospitalised in Spain for four months. The activist has been under house arrest for 18 months, “in order to receive medical treatment for the physical and psychological consequences of the attacks she suffered at the hands of the police”, says Amnesty International. “We believe that Morocco has a great capacity to influence decisions related to the Western Sahara issue”, says Sultana Khaya.
For Sultana Khaya, the disappointment remains great: “This prize is important for me from a moral, legal and humanitarian point of view, because it highlights the suffering of Sahrawi human rights activists and all my people. For me, every voice, every movement, every action is important, because it breaks the wall of silence imposed on the cause of my people.
[…] According to Le Soir de Bruxelles, Belgian investigators have just opened up a new lead in the case of corruption in the European Parliament: the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought. (ER: We believe this is the link but it’s mostly behind a paywall. Browsers will translate. This link gives us the full version.) […]