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Cuban Dissident
Paya Among Nobel Peace Prize Nominees
VOA
News, 13 Feb 2004.
Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya is among
the record number of nominees for this year's
Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. Paya, who was also nominated for the
award in 2003, heads the so-called Varela
Project. The movement aims to bring democratic
change to communist Cuba through a referendum
on political and economic reforms. The project
calls for a vote on freedom of speech and
assembly, the right to own a business, electoral
reform and amnesty for political prisoners.
The petition drive gathered enough signatures
for presentation to Cuba's National Assembly
in 2002, but Cuban leader Fidel Castro countered
with his own petition drive in support of
his one-party system.
Last year, Mr. Paya was awarded the European
Union's top human rights award, the Sakharov
Prize.
He now joins a record 173 nominated individuals
and groups for this year's Peace Prize,
among them President Bush, Pope John Paul
II and the U.N. nuclear chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.
The winner will be announced in October.
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