Former PM Guterres awarded Human Rights Prize

PORTUGAL Portugal’s parliament has awarded António Guterres its 2016 Human Rights Prize, for his performance as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the speaker of parliament announced on Wednesday.  Guterres is expected shortly to be acclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations as the organisation’s new secretary-general.

Speaker, Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, said in a statement, “The Assembly of the Republic has decided to award the 2016 Human Rights Prize, created by a resolution on 10 December of 1998, to António Guterres, for his work in defence of human rights, namely in fulfilling his functions as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) between 2005 and 2015.  António Guterres’s performance as UNHCR deserves the most eloquent praise. So I am pleased at the decision taken today by the Assembly of the Republic.  António Guterres is the right man at the right time in the right place.”
The prize is to be handed over at a ceremony that is to be part of events to mark International Human Rights Day, on a date that has yet to be announced.