Ahmed El Senussi awarded Sakharov Prize

Libyan activist Ahmed El Senussi was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Friday. Other Arab Spring activists were also honoured with the distinguished award for the decisive roles they have played in the various movements that swept through Arab world earlier this year. Honours mentioned included the memory of the young Tunisian man, Mohamed Bouazizi, who sparked the Arab Spring revolutions by setting himself on fire as a sign of protest; Asmaa Mahfouz from Egypt with Razan Zeitouneh and Ali Farzat from Syria.  The prize, which is named in honour of the Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, has been awarded by the European Parliament every year since 1988. Ahmed El-Senussi was Libya's longest-serving prisoner of conscience, detained for 31 years following an attempted coup against former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.