The commissions for foreign affairs and development of the European Parliament have announced the three runners-up at the 2007 Sacharov Award for free thinking, established in 1988 and awarded every year to defenders of human rights and democracy in the world. The choice, after a selection among many personalities that had been nominated by the political groups that sit in the EU Assembly, fell on Salih Mahmoud Osman, Anna Politkovskaya (in memory of), and Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia. On October 25th, the presidents of the political groups of the European Parliament will select a winner, who will be given the Award during the plenary session in Strasbourg on December 11th. Salih Mahmoud Osman is "a Sudanese lawyer for human rights according to the Parliament’s reasons for awarding the prize -. He works with the Sudanese agency against torture and provides legal advice to the victims of the civil war" in his country. Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, a human rights activist, "known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict", who was murdered on October 7th 2006. Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia are the "defenders of human rights in China": in this case, the MEPs intend to give a message to Peking, chiefly because of next year’s Olympic Games.
