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BRUSSELS - Two Iranian dissidents have won the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for free speech, with a group of MEPs off to Tehran on Sunday (28 October) to hand-deliver a letter on the award.
The parliament said that Jafar Panahi (a film maker) and Nasrin Sotoudeh (a human rights lawyer) got the prize as "a message of solidarity and recognition to a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation and who have decided to put the fate of their country before their own."
Sotoudeh, a mother of two, is currently on hunger strike in prison, while Panahi was recently let out of jail but banned from making films.
The €50,000 Sakharov Prize is to be handed over at a ceremony in Strasbourg in December.
The parliament decision coincides with a previosuly-scheduled trip to Iran by a group of MEPs led by Finnish Green Tarja Cronberg.
Cronberg told EUobserver on Friday that she hopes to meet the two winners while she is Iran.
She is also planning to hand-deliver a letter from EU parliament chief Martin Schulz to Iranian MPs and officials asking for the winners to be allowed to come and collect their prize in person.
The visit to Iran has been criticised by centre-right MEPs, US politicians and Jewish lobby groups.
Daniel Schwammenthal, the head of the Brussels office of the American Jewish Committee, told this website that even if MEPs ask tough questions on human rights in closed-doors meetings, they will end up being shown on TV smiling and shaking hands in a "propaganda victory" for the regime.
He added that it will be "really disheartening" for dissidents such as the Sotoudeh and Panahi to watch the spectacle.
For her part, Cronberg noted that she has cut meetings from the agenda with people on the EU's Iran sanctions list, such as Iranian chief justice Sadegh Larijani, even though she personally believes the EU sanctions do not work.
She admitted it will be hard to control who actually walks into the meeting room once she is on the ground in Iran, however.
She added the main purpose of the trip will be to call for the abolition of the death penalty and that she will steer clear of the nuclear issue because the EU parliament has no mandate on international talks on stopping Iran from enriching uranium.
"There will probably be efforts to this effect [propaganda]. We are aware of this and we will be very clear about the message that we bring," she said.
Two previous delegation trips to Iran were cancelled at the last minute.
Last year, Iran declined to give visas on time. In 2010, EU parliament chiefs blocked it after a kindergarten teacher was sentenced to death-by-stoning for adultery.
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