The Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers (SKAP) presented the Freemuse Organization with the SKAP Special Prize for its efforts to stop musical censorship and artist persecution. Freemuse was founded in 1999 as a result of the first Wold Conference on Music and Censorship in Copenhagen, and is currently working around the world supporting persecuted musicians and authors and promoting the human right to free expression. By awarding this prize, SKAP wishes to show that they wholeheartedly support Freemuse’s work for freedom. For more information about SKAP visit www.skap.se. Alfons Karabuda, Executive Chairman of SKAP, recently had the following to say about the importance music freedom:

… it is important for me at a personal level to get involved in the issue of freedom of expression, since it is one of the prerequisites for my creativity. That is easy to forget when you live in Sweden, a country where democracy and free speech is as taken for granted as the tap water I drink.