Rights Groups Denounce 'Shameful' UNESCO E.Guinea Prize

Rights groups on Monday denounced UNESCO's plans to award a science prize financed by Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema as "shameful" and "utterly irresponsible".

The U.N. culture and science body is due to award the prize at a ceremony in Paris on Tuesday, but rights groups and Western nations have condemned the award because of accusations that Obiang rules with an iron grip and heads a government festering with corruption.

"UNESCO's decision to issue a controversial prize sponsored by (Obiang)... is disappointing and irresponsible," seven rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Global Witness, ONE and EG Justice, said in a statement.

"It is shameful and utterly irresponsible for UNESCO to award this prize, given the litany of serious legal and ethical problems surrounding it," said Tutu Alicante, director of EG Justice, which works to promote human rights and the rule of law in the country.

"Beyond letting itself be used to polish the sullied image of Obiang, UNESCO also risks ruining its own credibility."

Despite Western opposition, the prize, worth $3 million (2.5 million euros) over five years, was passed by 33 of the 58 states on UNESCO's governing board in a vote in March.

The vote called for the prize to be renamed the "International UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea Prize" for research in the life sciences, instead of the originally planned "Obiang-UNESCO Prize", after Obiang backed the change.

Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea since seizing power in a 1979 coup d'etat. His country is Africa's third-biggest oil exporter, but its people live in grinding poverty.