Makhsa Amini, who has become an icon of the women’s movement in Iran after her death in 2022, and Elon Musk are among the figures nominated today for the Zakharov Prize, the European Union’s highest honor for human rights.

The three largest political groups in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party, Socialists and Democrats and Renew (Centres and Liberals) proposed that the award for Freedom of Thought be given to Makhsa Amini and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement which started after her death. This nomination is thus considered the favorite for the award.

22-year-old Mahsha Amini, an Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, 2022, days after she was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf “properly” as required by Iran’s strict dress code.

The winner of the prize will be announced in October and the award will take place at the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg in December.

The far-right political group Identity and Democracy, which includes parties such as France’s National Alarm, Italy’s League and Germany’s AfD, has nominated Elon Musk, the controversial owner of the X (formerly Twitter) platform, as a candidate.

Other nominees for the 2023 Zakharov Prize are “the pro-European people of Georgia”, climate activist Vanessa Nakate from Uganda and “women fighting for free, safe and legal abortion” (Poland’s Justyna Widrinska, Morena Herrera from Salvador and American Colleen McNichols). The last two proposals were submitted by the Greens and the Radical Left.

The “For Freedom of Thought” award is named after the Russian nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei Zakharov, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.