Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
On World Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, Zheng Yichun, an Epoch Times journalist and scientist from China, was awarded with a major Human Rights prize – the Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt medal.
Zheng could not attend the ceremony, as he is incarcerated in China for publishing the truth.
The award was supposed to be presented on Dec. 15 at the House at the Check Point of Charlie in Berlin. On September 22, 2005, 46- year old Zheng Yichun was sentenced in China to seven years in prison. He is only one of many Epoch Times journalists in prison for publishing the truth about the Chinese Communist regime. (Please see A Disgraceful Sentence. )
He suffers from diabetes, and there are concerns that he is not receiving necessary medical care.
Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt was the founder and the leader of the museum of the Wall in the former Check Point Charlie on the border between West and East Berlin. After his death, a medal in his name was founded for outstanding achievements in the region of human rights.
This reward was also awarded to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin who was killed in 1995. The reward will be received by Dalia Rabin, Yitzchak Rabin's daughter and the former deputy Minister of Defense of Israel.
The prize is being awarded this year for the first time.
The jury's members include the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Nobel Prize winner Henry Kissinger, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany Hans Dietrich Genscher, Professor Dr. Avi Primor, Member of Parliament of Scotland Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, director and human rights activist from the former GDR Freya Klier, Jurist of the International Society on Human Rights Rainer Haushofer, and the director of the Berlin College "Touro" Sara Nakhama.
