When Europe’s most prestigious human rights prize is next awarded, it could be a major rebuke of America’s National Security Agency’s (NSA) practice of spying on its friends.

The European Parliament nominated fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, putting him alongside such luminaries as Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.  Snowden is currently living under asylum in Russia, after fleeing the US and exposing the secrets of the NSA to a handful of trusted reporters.

The European parliament is the EU’s only directly body.  Its nomination of Snowden is seen as the latest event in the growing rift between the US and its continental allies, not only because of the NSA spying scandal, but also for the threat of US military action against Syria.

Other people being nominated include:

16-year old Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who became an international advocate for the education rights of young women, in less than a year after she was shot in the head in a failed assassination attempt by the Taliban; 

Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon and Kremlin critic who is imprisoned in Russia under what many believe to be politically-motivated charges;

And Erdem Gunduz, who helped inspire protesters against the thuggish authoritarianism of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this year in Istanbul’s Taksim Square.