The Sydney Peace Foundation has announced that it will award a rare gold medal to WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange for his work on behalf of peace and justice worldwide. The Peace Medal, distinct from the foundation's annual Peace Prize, has been awarded to only three other individuals: the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Japanese lay Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda.
Foundation director Stuart Rees said today:
"Peace from our point of view is really about justice, fairness and the attainment of human rights. ... Assange has championed people's right to know and has challenged the centuries-old tradition that governments are entitled to keep the public in a state of ignorance."
Prof Rees said Mr Assange's work was in the tradition of Tom Paine's Rights of Man and Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers - "challenging the old order of power in politics and in journalism".
"In the Paine, Ellsberg and Assange cases, those in power moved quickly to silence their critics even by perverting the course of justice."
Mr Assange has been informed of the award and said it would be an "enormous pleasure and honour" to receive it.
The Sydney Peace Foundation is a non-profit organization set up within the University of Sydney in 1998.
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