Welcome
Simone Veil to receive the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma 2010
French politician and former President of the European Parliament Simone Veil is the bearer of this year’s European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma. The award pays tribute to her outstanding commitment to legal equality for the Sinti and Roma.
Worth 15,000 euro, the Prize is to be awarded for the second time on Thursday (16 December) by the Manfred Lautenschläger Foundation, the Central Council and the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma.
This year for the first time members of the Sinti and Roma minority are to receive two special recognition awards worth 5000 euro each for their courageous and committed efforts to ensure full inclusion. These will go to Hungarian human rights activist Ágnes Daróczi and a youth group from the Czech city of Ostrava.
The European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma will be awarded on 16 December at 11.00 a.m. at the Federal Foreign Office.The speakers at the award ceremony will be Minister of State Cornelia Pieper, Prof. Rita Süssmuth, Central Council Chairman Romani Rose and Dr (h. c.) Manfred Lautenschläger. The event will be moderated by Jacques Delfeld, the chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate Association of German Sinti and Roma.