Renowned Egyptian scientist Farouk al-Baz has called on public figures to unify their efforts internationally–both as individuals and representatives of institutions and states–in support of a proposal to collectively award the Nobel Peace Prize to Egyptian young people, who played a leading role in the 25 January uprising that led to last week's ouster of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak.
Al-Baz, a dual Egyptian-American national who worked with US space agency NASA in the planning and execution of past moon missions, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Egypt's young people had achieved a peaceful revolution and "put their country on the road to change and freedom."
Initially, he said, the idea should be proposed by former Nobel Prize winners–such as former US president Jimmy Carter and former South African head-of-state Nelson Mandela–to be followed up by support from prominent Egyptians including Ahmed Zewail, Mohamed ElBaradei, and various university and research professors who had received awards in science and literature.
Al-Baz, who is expected to arrive in Cairo on Thursday to participate in Friday's planned revolution celebrations, said that Egyptian young people had "dazzled the world" with their uprising "against tyranny, oppression, corruption, economic stagnation, apathy and idiocy." He added that Egypt's youth had provided "a fine example of peaceful revolution."
Al-Baz noted that, throughout the three-week uprising, protesters had refrained from partaking in any acts of destruction, even when attacked by armed government thugs. He said that protesters had showed great courage, pointing out that they had treated captured thugs with humanity and decency.
Al-Baz’s initiative coincides with similar campaigns launched on the petition-based website “petition spot” and on social-networking platform Facebook.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
