Controversial Prize Pushes Forward

UNESCO will reconsider awarding a life sciences prize funded by an African dictator WHO has been accused of corruption and human rights violations.

Written byCristina Luiggi
| 1 min read

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Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979. WIKIPEDIA, AGENCIA BRASIL

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will reconsider awarding a controversial life sciences prize funded by the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, in an editorial board meeting to be held next week in Paris.

UNESCO pulled the plug on the prize last year after a successful campaign by human rights groups that condemned the organization for burnishing “the unsavory reputation of a dictator,” as human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu put it in a letter to UNESCO on June 2010. Not only has Obiang’s government been accused of human rights violations, corruption, and rigging elections, but the $3 million-a-year for five years that Obiang has pledged for the prize is said to be money stolen from state ...

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