Germany’s major centre-left political party SPD has chosen to honour the Courage Foundation’s Acting Director Sarah Harrison with the International Willy Brandt Prize for ‘special political courage’, Der Speigel reports.

The SPD says Harrison “exemplifies the pursuit of transparency and its use against escalating surveillance. Sarah Harrison has with her commitment to WikiLeaks and especially in the company of Edward Snowden showed great political courage.”

The prize is named for former West German chancellor Willy Brandt, who won the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize for reconciling West Germany with Eastern Europe.

Harrison is WikiLeaks’ investigations editor and helped build the Courage Foundation, which was created after Harrison’s best-known effort: protecting NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as he fled Hong Kong for Moscow in 2013.

Harrison has spent the last several years speaking and writing in support of endangered whistleblowers and against government persecution.

Read Der Spiegel’s full article here.