The second prize ceremony took place on the 27 November, 1981 in the Vienna City Hall. The focal point in 1981 was again Latin America and the Middle East. However at the same time the Kreisky Foundation also drew attention to the situation under the military dictatorship in South Korea.

In Kim Chi-ha and Kim Dae-jung, two leaders of the democracy and human rights movements in South Korea were honoured.

In 1974 the poet Kim Chi-ha (Kim Chi-ha, Korean. Homonym for „underground“) was sentenced to death for allegedly instigating public disorder. Worldwide protests led to his release, but he was re-imprisoned again already in 1975. Although he was a celebrated poet internationally, his work was strictly censored in South Korea. In 1980, after he had again been released, Kim became a symbol of resistance to the military regime.

As leader of the democratic opposition, Kim Dae-jung was repeatedly imprisoned and was kidnapped from exile in Japan and taken to South Korea. In 1980, under the dictator General Chun Doo-hwan, Kim was sentenced to death. The punishment was commuted to lifelong imprisonment in 1981. In 1982 Kim was allowed to leave the country for exile in the United States. After the democratisation of South Korea in 1987, Kim Dae-jung won the presidential election in 1998. Kim Dae-jung received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his policies of seeking closer relations with North Korea and a settlement of the conflict.

		President Kim Dae-jung and his wife, Lee Heeho, as guest in Armbrustergasse 1993 l. to r.: Peter Kreisky, Alfred Ströer, Margit Schmidt, Präsident Kim Dae-jung mit Gattin Lee Heeho.
Kim Dae-jung as political prisoner.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, imprisoned on Robben Island, was another prize winner. The award of the Kreisky Prize was the second international prize for the African freedom fighter after the Jawalarlal Nehru Award for International Understanding 1980. Mandela could not accept the prize in person and the prize and prize money also could only be delivered to his family by covert means. In 1993, Nelson Mandela together with Frederik Willem de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize for their policies of peaceful change in South Africa.

Nelson Rolihla Mandela

The Israeli Trade Union Federation Histadrut was honoured for a project promoting co-existence of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in northern Israel. Two other prizes went to Raymonda Tawil, a committed Palestinian women's rights activist and journalist, and the Israeli historian and journalist Simcha Flapan.

Three prizes went again to Latin America. Orlando Fals Borda, the Columbian sociologist received the award for his fight against poverty and the suppression of peasant farmers. Enrique Álvarez Córdoba, the agriculture minister of El Salvador and president of the Frente Democrático Revolucionario (FDR), was arrested on 28th November 1980, tortured and murdered. The prize was awarded to him posthumously.

Domitila Barrios de Chungara was one of the first grass roots activists in Latin America. The Bolivian female miner was one of the leading women's rights activists of the 1970s and 1980s in Latin America. At the beginning of the 1980s Mrs Domitila Barrios de Chungara was living in exile in Switzerland.

The Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle Européenne in Paris was honoured for its humanistic work and support for scholars and intellectuals in east Europe.

		Two prizes went to Austrian recipients. Rosa Jochman, an untiring voice against fascism and resistance fighter against Austro-fascism and National Socialism, was honoured for her many years of engagement, as was Felix Ermacora, the spiritus rector of Austrian human rights policy and research after 1945.
Rosa Jochmann as prize winner 1981, background Karl Kahane.	Felix Ermacora