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Hirak figure Nasser Zefzafi was not awarded the Sakharov Prize, granted by the European Parliament. The vote, which took place Thursday in Brussels, revealed that Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Gennadyevich Sentsov is the one to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Announcing the results of the vote, president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani said that Nasser Zefzafi is invited to the award ceremony, which will be presented in Strasbourg on December the 12th. He also added that the two other finalists, including the Hirak detainee, received important votes.
Nasser Zefzafi made it to the shortlist of the three finalists voted by the Foreign Affaires Committee and the Development Committee, earlier this month. He was first nominated by Dutch MEP Kati Piri and was backed by 42 other MEPs in Brussels.
Efforst of Dutch-Moroccan activists
For the record, Moroccan-Dutch nationals have lobbied for the nomination of Hirak figure Nasser Zefzafi to the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. According to Dutch online newspaper NRC.NL, the idea of enabling Nasser Zefzafi to win the Sakharov Prize, was born in the Netherlands.
Hossnia, a 30-year-old Moroccan-Dutch activist, was the one behind Zefzafi’s nomination. Since January, the woman living in the Netherlands has been trying to convince her fellow activists to help her make her dream come true. She «brought eight Moroccan-Dutch social activists», operating in Rotterdam to join her campaign. Fortunately, one of the people she managed to convince knew Dutch MEP Kati Piri, who supported the Zefzafi's nomination inside the European Parliament.
Nasser Zefzafi is currently behind the bars, serving a 20-year prison sentence. He was tried in June by the Casablanca Court of Appeals which sentenced 53 other Hirak detainees for leading the Hirak protests that shoke Al Hoceima.
Nabil Ahmjik, Ouassim Boustati and Samir Ighir received a 20-year sentence each for «undermining national security», six other detainees were convicted for «faking the fact that they were journalists».
The list includes Mohamed Al Asrihi, El Idrissi Houssein, Rabii Ablak, and Abdelali Houd who were sentenced to five years in prison and fined 2,000 dirhams.
Journalist Jawad Al Sabiry received a two-year sentence and 2,000 dirhams fine, while his colleague Foued Essaidi was sentenced to three years in prison.
