The Right Livelihood Award — known as the “Alternative Nobel” — has been given to three jailed Saudi human rights defenders and two Latin American anti-corruption crusaders.
The prize foundation says on Monday that the 1 million kronor ($113,400) cash award for 2018 was to be shared by Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani and Waleed Abu al-Khair “for their visionary and courageous efforts, guided by universal human rights principles, to reform the totalitarian political system in Saudi Arabia.”
It said the 2018 honorary award was given to Thelma Aldana of Guatemala and Colombia’s Ivan Velasquez “for their innovative work in exposing abuse of power and prosecuting corruption.”
Created in 1980, the annual Right Livelihood Award honours efforts that the prize founder, Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull, felt were being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.
