Black Lives Matter awarded 2017 Sydney peace prize

Former winners Naomi Klein and Pat Dodson hail recognition of US-founded movement that ‘resonates around the globe’

The human rights movement Black Lives Matter has won this year’s Sydney peace prize.

The movement – which will be honoured in Sydney in November – was founded in the US by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi after the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, who had been accused of murdering black teenager Trayvon Martin.

Each year the Sydney Peace Foundation honours a nominee who has promoted “peace with justice”, human rights and non-violence. Past recipients include Julian Burnside, Prof Noam Chomsky and the former Irish president Mary Robinson.

Western Australian Labor senator Pat Dodson, who was awarded the Sydney peace prize in 2008 for his advocacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, applauded the selection of Black Lives Matter as a movement that stood against “ignorance, hostility, discrimination, or racism”.

“This movement resonates around the globe and here in Australia, where we have become inured to the high incarceration rates and deaths in custody of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” Dodson said. “It’s as if their lives do not matter…

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