Freedom of Expression Prize to Robert Mood – Adresseavisen

The price is NOK 400 000 and is the foundation’s highest honor. The price also Freedom of Expression statuette crafted by Nils Aas.

“Robert Moods many and debate-provoking contributions are particularly important because we live in a time when opportunities to express staff in several parts of the public sector is under considerable pressure. Furthermore, we see that the media and the public in many cases have difficulty getting access, “said the enpressemelding.

– Inspiration for other citizens

– As such, a key military leader as Robert Mood be an inspiration for other citizens who want to engage with their expertise in debates on controversial topics, says chairman Georg Fr. Rieber-Mohn in Freedom of Expression.

The Foundation emphasizes that it rarely happens that senior civil servants taking part so actively and courageously in public debate. Robert Mood has done it with enlightening and critical posts about defense policy, and about whether it is farther from his own field of work, according to the foundation.

Among the topics Mood has been involved in, is the Norwegian forces in Afghanistan, treatment Armed veterans, the size of the defense budget, downsizing of the army, West’s relations with Syria crisis, arming of the Norwegian police and Norway’s relations with Russia.

Head of the Armed Forces

57-year Mood was in 2014 appointed Lieutenant general and chief of Defence military delegation at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Previously he has held a wide variety of management positions in the Norwegian Armed Forces, including as head of the Telemark Battalion and Inspector General of the Army. Internationally, he has been appointed by the UN Secretary General to head of the monitoring mission in the Middle East (UNTSO), and later head of the UN observer mission in Syria (United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria).

The prize is awarded at a ceremony in Oslo Opera House 10 May. Among the previous winners are policeman Robin Schaefer, matron Anne Sender of the Jewish community in Norway, professor and doctor Per Fugelli, author and commentator Sara Azmeh Rasmussen and journalist Ander Sømme Hammer.