Chinese pro-democracy activist Xu Youyu has been conferred with the prestigious Sweden’s Olof Palme Human Rights prize. Xu is recognized for his continuous work on the democratization of Chinese society, while condemning any form of violence as apolitical method. He was detained by Chinese authorities in May 2014 in a crackdown on dissent ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Xu was born in 1947 at Beijing and currently he is a Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
Olof Palme Prize
The Olof Palme Prize is an annual prize worth 75000 US dollars granted by the Olof Palme Memorial Fund established by the Social Democratic Party of Sweden and Olof Palme family. It commemorates the memory of the Nordic country’s Social Democratic prime minister, an outspoken international human rights advocate, who was assassinated in the Swedish capital in 1986.
Since 1987 the award has been awarded to human rights defenders around the world including Burma’a Aung San Suu Kyi and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.