As well as the annual Sydney Peace Prize, the Sydney Peace Foundation presents various other awards to recognise achievements in the promotion of peace with justice. These include prizes, certificates and the Gold Medal.
The Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal is awarded on occasion to recognise extraordinary achievement for the promotion of peace with justice. It is distinct from the annual Sydney Peace Prize, which is awarded in November each year, and is the Foundation’s preeminent accolade, made in honour of a lifetime commitment to advancing peace with justice.
In its fourteen year history, the Sydney Peace Foundation has awarded its Gold Medal on only four occassions.
2011 – Julian Assange
The Sydney Peace Foundation has awarded its Gold Medal for peace with justice to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. The citation reads, ‘For exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights’.
The Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees, has stated,
’Assange’s work is in the Tom Paine Rights of Man and Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers tradition- challenging the old order of power in politics and in journalism.
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. In the Paine, Ellsberg and Assange cases, those in power moved quickly to silence their critics even by perverting the course of justice’.
The Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal was awarded to Julian Assange at a ceremony in mid 2011. Watch the ceremony at London’s Frontline Club.
More on Julian Assange’s award
Presented by veteran Australian broadcaster Mary Kostakidis, the Sydney Peace Medal recognises Assange’s leadership, courage and tenacity in journalism and publishing, and pays tribute to his enduring conviction that truth matters and justice depends on it. Kostakidis, a former member of the Australian Human Rights Consultation Committee, praised WikLeaks as an “ingenious and heroic website that has shifted the power balance between citizen and the state by exposing what governments really get up to in out name”.
Acknowledging that “exposing secrets can be dangerous business”, Kostakidis thanked Assange for his “heroic courage” as a whistleblower to take “great risks for our benefit”.
In accepting the Gold Medal, Mr Assange said, “The real value of this award, and the Sydney Peace Foundation is that it makes explicit the link between peace and justice”.
“It does not take the safe feel good option of shunning controversy by uttering platitudes. Instead it goes into difficult terrain by identifying organisations and individuals who are directly engaged in struggles of one kind or another,” he said.
“With WikiLeaks we are all engaged in a struggle, a generational struggle for a proposition that citizens have a right and a duty to scrutinise the state.”
2009 – Daisaku Ikeda
Sydney Peace Foundation Executive Committe member Marie Whybourne presented an SPF Medal Daisaku Ikeda, the Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, writer and peace activist (seen here with Foundation Directory Professor Stuart Rees).
Dr Ikeda founded Soka Gakkai International, an organisation with ten million members world wide who share a philosphy which emphasises the value and dignity of all life and the responsibility of every individual to contribute to building a world where people of diverse cultures and faiths can live in peace.
2002 – 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet
Former Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Kathryn Greiner, presented His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, with the Sydney Peace Foundation Medal. The presentation was in recognition of his untiring work for human rights, nonviolence and world peace
2000 – Nelson Mandela
Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, presented Dr Stella Cornelisu, founder of the Conflict Resolution Network, and Dr Faith Bandler, campaigner for indigenous rights in Australia, with certificates for their dedication and achievements in conflict resolution and education
