“El Sexto” Awarded 2015 Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent

"El Sexto" Awarded 2015 Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent / 14ymedio
Posted on April 16, 2015

14ymedio, 15 April 2105 — The Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El
Sexto (The Sixth*), is one of three winners of the 2015 Václav Havel
Prize for Creative Dissent, as announced on Wednesday by the New
York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Also receiving the prize are
members of the Sudanese non-violent resistance movement Girifna, and the
Indonesian comic Sakdiyah Ma'ruf. The prize will be awarded in an Oslo
Freedom Forum ceremony on May 27.

The graffiti artist, who has been in prison since last December charged
with contempt, continues to await trial. He was arrested while
attempting to stage a performance with two pigs decorated with the names
"Fidel" and "Raul."

"Through his art, El Sexto reveals the intolerance of the Cuban regime,"
said the former Romanian president Emil Constantinescu. "A government
that is afraid of an artist and his work has a truly fragile hold on
power and is demonstrating its tyrannical nature," he added.

Girifna, whose name in Arabic means "we are fed up," is a non-violent
resistance movement in Sudan founded in 2010 by young pro-democracy
activists. Its members have become a constant target for repression by
the government of Omar al-Bashir.

Sakdiyah Ma'ruf is an Indonesian comic monologist who constantly
challenges Islamic fundamentalism. Television producers have tried
several times to censor her jokes, but Ma'ruf has always refused.

The three winners will receive a representation of the Goddess of
Democracy, the iconic statue erected by Chinese students during protests
in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and will share a prize of 350,000
Norwegian kroner (about $44,000).

The Human Rights Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes
human rights worldwide, established this prize with the support of
Dagmar Havlová, widow of the late poet, playwright and statesman Vaclav
Havel to honor those who fight against dictatorships. Previous prize
winners include Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the Russian group Pussy Riot,
North Korean democracy activist Park Sang Hak and Burmese opposition
leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among others.

*Translator's note: Danilo jokingly adopted this moniker in reference to
"The Cuban Five" also known, in Cuba, as "The Five Heroes"; five Cuban
spies formerly in prison in the United States.

Source: "El Sexto" Awarded 2015 Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent
/ 14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
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