- 2024
- Salman Rushdie
- Read more
- Salman Rushdie
- 2024
The laureate of the 2024 Gilel Storch Award is Indian-born, British- American author Salman Rushdie who, despite threats and persecution, bravely and with unyielding conviction stood up for freedom of speech and against religious extremism and authoritarian oppression. With great civil courage and through his rich, bridge-building authorship, Rushdie has shown human dignity when facing hatred and fanaticism. Through his literary achievements as well as his personal stand, openness and optimism, Rushdie has become a front figure and symbol for freedom of speech and democracy, at a time when it is most crucial to defend and secure them. Rushdie has written fourteen novels, including The Satanic Verses in 1988. That novel was banned in Iran as blasphemous, and a fatwa calling for his death was issued by the country’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, which forced the writer into hiding. Thirty-three years after the fatwa was issued Rushdie, 75, was seriously injured by an attacker as he prepared to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York in August 2022. The author was in hospital for six weeks and sustained several wounds, losing vision in his right eye and the use of one hand. Rushdie’s latest book Knife is a personal account of enduring–and surviving–that attempt on his life. In the book he reminds the reader how art can help understand the unthinkable. The book will be published internationally this fall (in Sweden at Albert Bonniers Förlag in a translation of Amanda Svensson). The award ceremony was held on thursday May 30 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. The program included a live online interview with Salman Rushdie conducted by Björn Wiman, culture editor of the daily Dagens Nyheter. A selection of texts from Rushdie’s books was read by actors from the theatre’s ensemble.
Salman Rushdie tilldelas Gilel Storch Award för sin livslånga kamp mot religiös extremism och auktoritärt förtryck. Såväl konstnärligt som genom sina personliga ställningstaganden framstår Rushdie som en ledande symbol för yttrandefrihet, demokrati och mänskliga rättigheter i en tid då det är särskilt angeläget att försvara och upprätthålla dessa värden. Salman Rushdie föddes 1947 i Bombay och är numera, efter många år i England, bosatt i USA. Rushdies författarskap har präglats av modet att säga, skriva och tänka djärva tankar och för det har han fått betala ett oerhört högt pris. I över trettio år har han levt under livshot efter att den iranska regimen utfärdade en fatwa mot honom 1989. Den 12 augusti 2022 blev Rushdie attackerad under ett framträdande i Chautauqua i New York. I boken Kniv berättar han för första gången i detalj om det fruktansvärda dådet, men påminner oss också om hur konsten kan hjälpa oss att förstå det otänkbara. Kniv, i översättning av Amanda Svensson, utkommer den 16 april på Albert Bonniers Förlag. Prisceremonin ägde rum torsdagen den 30 maj på Dramatens Lilla scen då Björn Wiman, författare och kulturchef på Dagens Nyheter, intervjuade Salman Rushdie live via länk. Prisutdelningen är ett hommage till Rushdies storslagna gärning och författarskap. I prisceremonin medverkade delar av Dramatens ensemble.
- 2023
- Lev Markovitj Shlosberg
- Read more
- Lev Markovitj Shlosberg
- 2023
The Gilel Storch Award 2023 Laureate Lev Markovitj Shlosberg.
Russian opposition politician, journalist and democracy activist.
Lev Markovitj Shlosberg (born1963) has been dedicated to developing Russia into a democracy through grass roots political work and the implementation of numerous successful social endeavours, such as founding the Volny (Free) University (1992) and Pskovskaya Gubernia (2000), an independent regional newspaper. Twice elected to the regional Duma, he has used that platform to formulate alternative policies on both regional and federal levels. Lately, he has continued his work via social media. Since the 24 of February 2022, Shlosberg has been a clear anti-militaristic and anti-imperial voice. His positions are based on humanistic values, and not only in theory, but he has also mobilized emergency aid for Ukrainian refugees in Russia.
His strong conviction in, and the strenuous struggle for democracy, civil rights and freedom of expression, from within Russia, demonstrate outstanding civil courage.
Gilel Storch Award år 2023 tilldelas Lev Markovitj Shlosberg, rysk oppositionspolitiker, journalist och demokratiaktivist.
Lev Markovitj Shlosberg (f.1963) har verkat för att utveckla Ryssland till en demokrati genom initiativ på gräsrotsnivå. Han har genomfört ett antal framgångsrika projekt inom civil samhället, såsom att grunda Volny (Fria) Universitet (1992) och Pskovskaya Gubernia (2000), en oberoende regional tidning. Han valdes två gånger till den regionala Duman, en plattform han utnyttjade för att föra fram alternativ politik, såväl regionalt som på det federala planet. Under senare tid har han fortsatt sitt politiska arbete på sociala medier. Efter den 24 februari 2022, har Shlosberg varit en klar anti-militaristisk och anti-imperialistisk röst, inte bara i teorin, utan även i praktiken, när han mobiliserade humanitär hjälp till flyende ukrainare.
Hans starka engagemang och arbete för demokrati, medborgerliga rättigheter och yttrandefrihet i dagens Ryssland, visar på enastående civilkurage.
Gilel Storch Award 2023
- 2022
- Adam Michnik
- Read more
- Adam Michnik
- 2022
Adam Michnik, born 1946, grew up in a Polish-Jewish family in Warsaw. He was perceived by the communist government as a systemic threat already as a 17-year-old high school student. By 1968 he gets expelled from the university and arrested together with other activists, which ignites the students’ protest movement against the prevailing censorship. Michnik is sentenced to prison and banned from further studies.
In 1976, Michnik together with his friend Jacek Kuron became the driving forces behind KOR, the Workers’ Defense Committee, the first organized democratic movement in Poland, which became the embryo of the Solidarity movement. By 1978, he initiated the Society for Scientific Courses, the so-called Flying University. Michnik was repeatedly imprisoned for his dissident activities during the 1980s. In 1988, he took part in the negotiations that resulted in the organization of partially free elections as well as ensuring the peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy in Poland.
Thanks to his positions and activities, Michnik has been a major influence in contributing to the bloodless fall of communism in Central Europe. Both as an activist and a publicist, Adam Michnik has over the years consistently proven to be a person of exceptional moral integrity.
He has demonstrated a unique capability to maintain clear and independent judgement, even while under intense external pressure.
Michnik has been the editor-in-chief of the leading daily Gazeta Wyborcza since 1989, and as such has persistently argued for democracy and individual freedoms, against nationalism and subordination under any kind of isms. Adam Michnik is today considered one of the world’s most significant publicists.
- 2020
- Gloria Steinem
- Read more
- Gloria Steinem
- 2020
Gilel Storch Award 2020 is awarded American writer, political activist and feminist Gloria Steinem for her lifelong and dedicated work with the women’s liberation movement, the civil rights movement and the Equal Rights Amendment. Born in 1934, Steinem’s life has been dedicated to the cause of women’s rights. Steinem started her professional career as a journalist in New York and in 1968 she helped found New York Magazine, where she became an editor and political writer. She later co-founded and became the editor of Ms. Magazine, the first magazine in the United States that covered issues of women rights and movements (rather than articles on housekeeping). In 1972, Steinem and feminists such as Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, and feminist Betty Friedan formed the National Women’s Political Caucus. It continues to support gender equality and to ensure the election of more pro-equality women to public office. Many other important organizations dealing with women’s equal rights has Gloria Steinem as co-founder. In 2013 Gloria Steinem received from President Barack Obama the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest honor awarded to civilians.
- 2020
- Göran Persson
- Read more
- Göran Persson
- 2020
Gilel Storch Award 2020 is awarded former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson for his longstanding contributions to the struggle against antisemitism by being instrumental in building and supporting Holocaust education, remembrance and research. By this Mr. Persson has shown that one person can make a difference. Born in 1949 Göran Persson served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006. In 1997 he initiated a campaign to inform the general public about the Holocaust. This resulted in the publication “… och om detta må ni berätta”. (Tell Ye Your Children: A Book about the Holocaust) This book was commissioned by the Swedish government and distributed in over 1,5 million copies to a.o. school children in Sweden as part of its education project Levande historia (Living History), initiated also by Göran Persson. A further initiative was establishing a Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. Göran Persson’s dedicated efforts led to the Stockholm Conference 2000, gathering international political and social leaders behind the need for Holocaust education, remembrance and research. Mr. Persson’s efforts resulted in the Stockholm Declaration and the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance). In October of this year, a conference on antisemitism and remembrance of the Holocaust will take place, this time in the city of Malmö (Malmö Forum 2020). It is a direct follow-up of the initiative taken 20 years ago by Prime Minister Göran Persson.
- 2019
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Read more
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- 2019
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is awarded the Gilel Storch Award for 2019 for outstanding contributions for human rights and the equal value of all human beings. During her 25 years as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Ginsburg has, by subdued but strong voice and the law as her instrument, been a progressive activist for the rights of minorities and women. With unwavering integrity, the highest intellectual sharpness and firm humanistic values as the basis, Justice Ginsburg has succeeded in achieving decisive breakthroughs for the equality between women and men.
- 2018
- Joachim Gauck
- Read more
- Joachim Gauck
- 2018
The Gilel Storch Award 2018 Laureate – Joachim Gauck.
The Gilel Storch Award 2018 was given former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck, for his lifelong, consistent and courageous struggle against oppression and for democracy, freedom and human rights. Joachim Gauck (b. 1940) served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil right activist in East Germany. Gauck’s activities and writings are geared towards defending freedom and human rights around the globe.
