Darfur lawyer Osman wins European rights prize

STRASBOURG, France - The European Parliament on Thursday awarded its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Sudanese human rights lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman.

Osman, an opposition member of the Sudanese parliament who works for the Sudan Organisation Against Torture, has for years defended and given free legal aid to hundreds of victims of rights abuses in Sudan's Darfur region.

"The European Parliament wants to recognise the very important work of this very courageous man, who has made his voice heard to make sure the rule of law is being supported in Sudan," the president of the parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, said in announcing the prize.

The award ceremony will take place in Strasbourg on Dec. 11.

The prize is named after leading Soviet rights activist Andrei Sakharov. It was awarded last year to Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich and previous recipients have included Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A European Parliament statement said Osman was the unanimous choice of the leaders of the parliament's political groups. The two other finalists were murdered anti-Kremlin journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Chinese activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan.

The European Parliament hailed Osman's work with the victims of conflict.

"Over two decades during Sudan's various civil wars Salih Mahmoud Osman has risked his own life to provide legal and medical aid to the countless victims of the conflict," it said on its Web site.

"His fight against injustice has had a personal cost; members of his family have been killed and tortured."

Osman himself was imprisoned by the Sudanese government for over seven months in 2004 without a charge or a trial.

In November 2005, Osman was awarded Human Rights Watch's highest honour for his work in Sudan.

Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted in violence in Darfur since mostly non-Arabs took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglect.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000 and says the West exaggerates the conflict.