Wet Gunpowder Award

Wet Gunpowder Award
Venue	Khorramshahr
Country	Iran
Presented by	Basij
First awarded	2013
Most nominations	Benjamin Netanyahu (2)
Official website	barotekhis.ir

The Wet Gunpowder Award (Persian: جایزه باروت خیس‎‎) is an Iranian Tongue-in-cheek symbolic award that according to organizers, is given to "ridiculous people whose chaffy character is evident to everyone and when this nature of theirs is accompanied with self-belief turns into an indefinite foolishness for them".^[1]

The organizers, who have close ties to Basij and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (The award is unveiled by Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi), claim award winner is “someone who is against the Islamic Revolution” and who “against their own wishes, performs a service to the revolution.”^[2][3][4]

The statue of the award is that of brain with dark glasses and hearing aids with a plaque of the Quranic verse: “Unwilling to hear, unwilling to speak, unwilling to see, then, they will not return to the way.”^[4]

In 2015, they awarded a parody of Golden Bear.^[5]

Recipients

First Lady Michelle Obama, pictured here announcing the winner of 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture, Argo, was inaugural winner. The prize was posted to her via Swiss Embassy in Tehran.^[6]

Year	Name	Nat	Org	Office holding	Rationale
2013	Michelle Obama			First Lady of the United States	For "showing the truth about the Academy awards to the world."[2]
2014[7]	Catherine Ashton			High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy	For meeting Sattar Beheshti's mother and handing Sakharov Prize to Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi[8]
	Tarja Cronberg			Member of the European Parliament
	Benjamin Netanyahu			Prime Minister of Israel
	Shimon Perez			President of Israel
	Ban Ki-Moon			Secretary-General of the United Nations
	John Kerry			United States Secretary of State
	Barack Obama			United States President
2015[5]	Manuel Valls			Prime Minister of France	"For disrespecting religious beliefs despite claiming for Free thought in France"
	David Cameron			Prime Minister of the United Kingdom	"For disrespecting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani"
	Benjamin Netanyahu			Prime Minister of Israel	"For killing 578 children in 51 days despite maintaining peaceful face publicly"
	Claudia Roth			Vice-President of the Bundestag	"For publicly showing her ties to Fitna (2009 presidential election protests)"
	John McCain			United States Senator	"For above board support of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant and opposition to terrorism at the same time"

Special awards

Year	Name	Nat	Office holding	Award	Rationale
2015	Dieter Kosslick		Director of the Berlin International Film Festival	"Goldean Bear"	For "devaluation of Arts" with awarding an "anti-Iranian movie" [Taxi by Jafar Panahi][5]

References

1. Ashton, Cronberg Receive Symbolic 'Wet Gunpowder' Award. Fars News Agency. March 17, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
2. Esfandiari, Golnaz (April 2, 2013). Iran's Basij Awards U.S. First Lady Over Oscars Announcement. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
3. Johnson, Eliana (April 1, 2013). Michelle Obama Receives Iranian Group’s ‘Wet Gunpowder’ Award. National Review. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
4. Karami, Arash (April 2, 2013). Michelle Obama Receives Iranian Group’s ‘Wet Gunpowder’ Award. Al-Monitor. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
5. جایزه «باروت خیس» به نخست وزیر فرانسه رسید. Mehr News Agency (in Persian). March 17, 2015. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
6. ایران جایزه باروت خیس را برای همسر اوباما پست می‌کند. BBC Persian (in Persian). March 31, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
7. نادری نامزدهای نهایی جایزه باروت خیس را اعلام کرد. Iranian Students' News Agency (in Persian). March 7, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
8. Lucas, Scott (March 18, 2014). Iran: Regime Gives “Wet Gunpowder Award” to EU’s Ashton. EA WorldView. Retrieved March 17, 2015.