Quê Me Quê Me: Action for democracy in Vietnam & Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
OSLO, 21 September 2006 (Reuters) – A Norwegian human rights body, which has four times anticipated the choice of the Nobel Peace Prize winner with its own award, chose a Vietnamese monk on Thursday to receive its annual prize.
The Thorolf Rafto Foundation for Human Rights honored Thich Quang Do “for his personal courage and perseverance through three decades of peaceful opposition against the communist regime in Vietnam, and as a symbol for the growing democracy movement in the country,” it said.
Quang Do, 77, has spent 25 years in prison and remains under house arrest, the foundation said.
Four previous Rafto laureates, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, South Korea’s Kim Dae-Jung and Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner will be announced on October 13 in Oslo.
Quang Do is among this year’s nominees for the Nobel prize, human rights campaigner Penelope Faulkner said.
