'Alternative Nobel prize' for Bianca Jagger (VOMIT ALERT)

The Scotsman ^ | September 21, 2004 | OMER FAROOQ

[MadIvan]

SHE has rarely been out of the spotlight of publicity since she married Mick Jagger in 1971. But while some celebrities may use their fame to boost their fortunes, Bianca Jagger has been rewarded for using her status to help others.

The former model has won this year’s "alternative Nobel" prize - along with two Indian religious scholars, an Argentine scientist and a Russian human rights group - for her human rights campaigning work.

Ms Jagger, who was born in Nicaragua, has been a prominent rights activist since her eight-year marriage to the Rolling Stones frontman ended in 1979, campaigning in particular against capital punishment. Over the past few decades she has become one of the world’s most high-profile advocates for human rights.

She has received numerous awards for her work from a range of human rights organisations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the United Nations and the Rainforest Alliance.

In the early 1980s, she went on a fact-finding mission to Colomoncagua, a United Nations refugee camp in Honduras, where she witnessed an armed death squad marching across the border from El Salvador and rounding up some 40 refugees.

Her intervention, using nothing but her camera, was praised as helping to prevent a massacre.

Since then, she has campaigned against the murder, torture and disappearance of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Ms Jagger has also travelled to Bosnia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces as part of their campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The awards were founded by former European parliament member Jakob von Uexkull in 1980, with money from the sale of his stamp collection, to reward work that he felt the official Nobel Prizes ignored.

Although Ms Jagger spent years as one of New York’s glitterati, Mr von Uexkull defended giving her the cash prize for her work with causes ranging from environmental protection to fighting the death penalty in the United States.

"There is a misconception that Bianca would have more than enough money, but we have researched nominations very carefully and in fact she has worked and spent her personal money to a very large extent for many, many years," Mr von Uexkull said.

Other winners included Argentina’s Raul Montenegro, who received the award for his environmental protection work with Latin American communities and indigenous groups.

Social reformer and theologian Swami Agnivesh and academic Asghar Ali Engineer, both of India, were also recognised for their work in promoting tolerance in south Asia, the Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation said.

Also chosen was Memorials, a group that promotes civil liberties in Russia and surrounding countries.

[MadIvan]

It says a lot that she's too wacky for even a standard Nobel prize, given the Nobel committee's left wing bias.

I wonder how Mick feels about all this. (Probably, "glad to be rid of her, mate")

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Ping!

[Happygal]

Didn't Mick trade her in for a Texan? ;-)

[MadIvan]

Indeed he did! And then he ditched the Texan!

Regards, Ivan

[lainde]

bttt

[7.62 x 51mm]

"...American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the United Nations and the Rainforest Alliance..."

Says a boatload about the ugly, smelly skank.

"Alternative" Nobel Prize, my butt.

[tjwmason]

Given that Nobel founded and endowed his prizes as a 'penance' for inventing dynamite; one wonders what Mr. von Uexkull did, even I would not count being a member of the European Parliament as quite that serious.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of the Stortinget (Norwegian Parliament), so one can hardly be surprised at the astonishing left-wing bias.