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Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is this year’s winner of the International Four Freedoms Award. He is to receive the prize for years spent combating social and economic injustice in Brazil.
The award will be presented by the Roosevelt Foundation on 12 May in the New Church in the Dutch town of Middelburg. The awards are presented annually in New York, London or the Netherlands alternately.
The foundation called Lula’s long battle against poverty a continuing source of inspiration for ethnic groups and world leaders. He was a trade union leader before serving as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010.
The four other winners this year are the Arabic news station Al-Jazeera for freedom of speech, Turkey’s Archbishop Bartholomew for freedom of worship, Indian activist Ela Ramesh Bhatt for freedom from want and Iraqi Energy Minister Hussain al-Shahristani for freedom from fear.