In memory of Stieg Larsson his original Swedish publisher Norstedts and Stiegs father and brother, Erland and Joakim Larsson, has instituted an annual award of 200.000 Swedish Krona. The prize is awarded to a person or organization, working in Stieg Larssons spirit.
Stieg Larsson prize 2009
Expo, Stockholm
www.expo.se
Is given to Swedish magazine EXPO. Stieg Larsson was one of the co-founders of Expo and he continuously contributed to the magazine up until his death. Expo is driven by passionate journalists relentlessly exposing racist organizations and views in our society. The prize is to be seen as an encouragement to the editorial staff to keep working in Stieg Larssons spirit.
Stieg Larsson prize 2010
Is given to nurse Anne Sjögren of the Rosengren foundation in Stockholm
www3.rosengrenska.org/index.html
Anne Sjögren is given the Stieg Larsson prize 2010 for her work with providing qualified medical care to paperless refugees. Through her many years of dedication with the Rosengren foundation she has shown outstanding civil courage by forcefully, in actions as well as in opinion, defended human rights.
Stieg Larsson prize 2011
Is given to human rights activist Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, Nicaragua
www.cenidh.org
From 2011 the Stieg Larsson prize is international. It is given to Nicaraguan women’s rights activist Vilma Núñez de Escorcia. The prize is given for “upright defense of her own ideals and for her work with improving every day life for the women of her country”. Núñez de Escorcia has worked for human rights in Nicaragua since her years as a student under the dictator Somoza. Today she heads up CENDIDH and organization of her own founding.
Stieg Larsson prize 2012
Is given to Maryam Al-Khawaia
www.bahrainrights.org/en/about
twitter.com/MARYAMALKHAWAJA
For her brave struggle to defend democracy and human rights. With the web and social media as tools and persistent activism and the free word as methods Maryam Al-Khawaia has illuminated the injustices and inequalities of her home country Bahrain. Entirely in the sprit of Stieg Larsson.
Stieg Larsson prize 2013
Is given to Svetlana Gannusjkina
The 2013 Stieg Larsson prize is given to Svetlana Gannusjkina for her work to maintain civil rights i Russia, specifically illuminating and defending the situation of migrants and internal refugees. Her struggle is an important key in maintaining transparency and democracy in Russian political society. It has been met with strong political dissatisfaction and serious threats. In spite of this she has participated in maintaining multiple organizations dedicated to helping people affected by discrimination and political violence. All in the spirit of Stieg Larsson. Svetlana Gannusjkina is one of Russia’s most established champions of human rights. In the late 1980s, parallel to maintaining a professorship in mathematics, she engaged deeply in the refugees from the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict as the Soviet Union disintegrated. Later, she extended her work to also involve the effects on civil rights caused by the Chechnyan conflict. Today she is a prolific activist in Komitet Grazhdanskoe sodeistvie who works closely with other international organizations such as UNHCR.
Stieg Larsson prize 2014
Is given to Soraya Post & Thomas Hammarberg
Soraya Post and Tomas Hammarberg is given the Stieg Larsson prize 2014 for their relentless work in defence and on behalf of the Romani people and their human rights. The Romani people have a long history of oppression in Europe. Thomas Hammarberg and Soraya Post have both relentlessly and with great courage, in the spirit of Stieg Larsson, worked to strengthen human rights of the Roma throughout Europe.
Soraya Post
Soraya Post, although encompassing all human rights issues relating to the Romani in Europe, has devoted specific focus to the rights of Romani Women. Soraya Post is of Romani descent. A first hand witness to violations of Romani human rights her mother was force sterilised by the Swedish government in 1958 only two years after Post’s birth. In 2003 she was one of the initiators of the IRWN (International Roma Women’s Network) a network of Romani womens organisations from 18 European countries. Presently she represents Sweden in the European Parliament.
Thomas Hammarberg
Thomas Hammarberg, championed Romani human rights in a time when many others chose to hold their silence and has devoted the major part of his professional life human rights issues world wide. Thomas Hammarbergs background encompasses a wide variety of positions with organisations like Save The Children, Amnesty International and the United Nations. Between 2003 and 2012 he was commissioner for human Rights for the European Council during which he presented a report strongly criticising European countries (including Sweden) for their treatment of the Romani.
Stieg Larsson prize 2015
Is given to Yang Jisheng
Chinese author and journalist Yang Jisheng is given The Stieg Larsson prize 2015 for his stubborn and courageous work in mapping and describing the consequences of The Three Years of Great Chinese Famine also referred to by the Communist Party of China as Three Years of Natural Disasters, the Difficult Three Year Period and The Great Leap Forward Famine.
The famine, which took place between the years 1958 and 1961, was the result of The Great Leap Forward and led to the death of 36 million people. Yang Jisheng’s research is documented in his ground breaking work Tombstone where he , in the spirit of Stieg Larsson, nakedly and in great detail challenges the official history of the period as defined by the Chinese Regime.
Daniel Poohl, editor in chief for Swedish periodical EXPO and chairman of the jury,
– This catastrophe is one of Chinas biggest collective traumas. Yang Jisheng is given the Stieg Larsson prize for his journalistic courage in unearthing and exposing the truth.
Yang Jisheng has decided to give the prize money awarded with the Stieg Larsson prize in its entirety to Doctors Without Frontiers.
Stieg Larsson prize 2016
Is given to Jac Sm Kee
www.apc.org/en/home
The Stieg Larsson prize 2016 is awarded to Malaysian researcher and feminist activist Jac sm Kee. The price is awarded for her struggle, in the spirit of Stieg Larsson, for an open and equal information society based on the possibilities of the internet.
Jac’s perspective is that the internet can and should be a feminist platform with potential for mobilising women around the world. She is one of the founders of the award winning global campaign Take Back The Tech with the purpose of fighting digital gender based violence. She also leads the women rights program within the organisation Association for Progressive Communications (APC) that focuses on fighting internet-based violence towards women, encouraging web-based gender research and empowering women on issues that are technology-related.
Beyond her work with APC Jac sm Kee serves on the board for the Malaysian Centre for Independent Journalism, defending the right to free media and freedom of speech and is also one of the founders of KRYSS, an organisation working with sexual rights for young people in Malaysia.
Stieg Larsson Prize 2017
Is given to Claudia Dantschke
https://hayat-deutschland.de/english/
https://zentrum-demokratische-kultur.de/zdk/?c=english
Stieg Larsson the prize 2017 is awarded to german democracy activist Claudia Dantschke for her groundbreaking and successful work on the de-radicalization of young people in Islamic environments, as well as the nuanced public opinion she worked for regarding the image of Islam and Muslims. All in the spirit of Stieg Larsson.
Claudia Dantshcke is one of Germany’s leading experts in Islamism and Salafism who long before today’s indulgence in the matter explored and combated democracy-threatening forces in political Islam. Contrary to the sense of armor or symbolism, her work is characterized by qualified knowledge, rationality and pragmatism, always with a solution-oriented focus.
Since 2001 she is a member of the Zentrum Democratic Culture (ZDK), an organization that promotes enlightenment ideas and democratic values. On behalf of the ZDK, she mapped out islamist and higher extreme networks in various districts of Berlin in order to develop local strategies to address and prevent these anti-democratic forces. In 2011, she launched the initiative Hayat, Germany’s first counseling center for de-radicalization, which offers advice and support for people in Salafist and Jihadist environments, as well as defectors and relatives.
Through books, articles, lectures and programs, she communicates her gained knowledge and the strategies developed during her many years of practical field work.
Stieg Larsson Prize 2018
Is given to Carole Cadwalladr
The Stieg Larsson Prize 2018 is awarded to the British journalist and author Carole Cadwalladr for her courageous and unremitting efforts to reveal operators trying to undermine democratic processes in Britain and the United States. All in the spirit of Stieg Larsson.
Carole Cadwalladr is an experienced and multifaceted award-winning journalist who, through her investigative journalism, has contributed to strengthen public awareness and democracy’s resilience to the extreme forces trying to influence democratic elections and processes around the world.
Despite a loud opposition, Carole Cadwalladr has continued to engage her work to uphold and maintain rules of democracy. Through her journalistic deed the issues of personal and democratic integrity, in a decisive way, is now put on the agenda of the western world’s political debate.
Cadwalladr has, with her digging journalism at British newspaper The Observer, in collaboration with whistleblower Chris Wylie, presented details of the dubious methods of consulting company Cambridge Analytica and it’s networks used to affect both the presidential election in the United States and the British referendum on exit from the EU, as in other countries. The revelations where the starting point of a number of major public investigations, further journalistic audit and extensive debates on both sides of the Atlantic. Cambridge Analytica, currently settled, has denied all allegations.