Invitation to the awarding of the „Victor Gollancz Prize“ to Bernard Kouchner

Göttingen

„Public Ceremony of Awarding the „Victor Gollancz Prize“

of the Society for Threatened Peoples to Bernard Kouchner“

co-founder of Doctors without Borders (MSF) and Doctors of the World (MdM), French foreign minister (ret.)

Laudatory speech by Rubert Neudeck, founder of Cap Anamur/ Deutsche Notärzte e.V. (German Emergency Doctors)

20th September, 8 pm

Aula am Wilhelmsplatz, 37073 Göttingen

Entrance is free

We would appreciate your coming!

Kind regards

The STP team

Bernard Kouchner will be honored for his efforts in fighting crimes against humanity

Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister (ret.) and co-founder of Doctors without Borders (MSF) and Doctors of the World (MdM) will be awarded the “Victor Gollancz Prize” of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Göttingen on September 20, 2014. The human rights organization wants to recognize the 74-year-old physician’s lifelong, unwavering commitment to fight crimes against humanity.

Rubert Neudeck, founder of Cap Anamur and Deutsche Notärzte e.V. (German Emergency Doctors), will give the laudatory speech.

„Bernard Kouchner’s credo is to intervene where possible, to alleviate human suffering, to witness crimes, to identify perpetrators and actively help victims of persecution, expulsion and genocide. The British-Jewish humanist, writer and publisher Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) – whom the prize is named after – followed these principles as well“, the STP stated about the award for Kouchner. Furthermore, the French politician always represented the right and the duty to „humanitarian intervention“, also and especially against despotism in all political systems, even though he was criticized.

According to the STP’s Secretary General, Tilman Zülch, it was the genocide in encircled Biafra in 1968 that changed Bernard Kouchner’s life. Back then, two million Ibo – mostly children – died of starvation. If it had not been for Kouchner, the two global humanitarian organizations Médecins sans frontières (MSF, “Doctors without Borders”) and Médecins du Monde (MDM, “Doctors of the World”) would not have been founded. Kouchner took part in several humanitarian operations and peace-building missions – in several positions and in many parts of the world, including Biafra, Cambodia, Somalia, El Salvador, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Georgia. When Kouchner became an UN Envoy in Kosovo, he always tried to kept up his commitment concerning humanitarian issues and human rights requirements – just as before, when he was the French Foreign Minister.

Background of the prize

The STP has been awarding the »Victor Gollancz Prize« since the year 2000 – at irregular intervals. In 2014, the prize is endowed with a symbolic prize money of 3,000 Euros. Among the previous award winners are the Movement of Mothers from the enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa (Bosnia); the Chechen human rights activists Sainap Gashayeva and Lipkan Basajewa; the association Women from the Barzan Valley (Iraqi Kurdistan); the human and civil rights activists Sergei Adamovich Kovalev (Russia) and Mustafa Dzhemilev (Ukraine); the physician Dr. Halima Bashir (Darfur/Sudan); and the Indian Missionary Council CIMI (Brazil).

That’s how you can find the event:

Please use the interactive map in order to plan your trip.

The award will be presented during this year’s General Assembly of the STP

About 120 delegates are expected in Göttingen on September 20/21, 2014; among them 14 young adults from the Ukraine. In working groups, they will discuss strategies for future human rights campaigns of the STP. Due to the impending genocide against the minorities in Syria and Iraq, there will be a public panel discussion with witnesses and affected people – to be held in the the ballet school „art la danse“, Geiststraße 6, on Saturday, September 20, at 4.30 p.m.