WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was Wednesday awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation's top honour for "exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights", joining the company of Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

Assange, an Australian former computer hacker who is fighting extradition from Britain to Sweden over alleged sex crimes, was praised and rewarded with the Sydney Peace Prize's Gold Medal.

Foundation director Stuart Rees said the award was to honour the Assange's role in exposing official secrets.

'By challenging centuries-old practices of government secrecy and by championing people's right to know, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have created the potential for a new order in journalism and in the free flow of information,' Rees said.

Assange was reported as saying of the award that it 'makes explicit the link between peace and justice.'

Professor Noam Chomsky, considered to be the greatest intellectual influence in the Western world for the past forty years, has paid tribute to the awarded Julian Assange.

"I thank you profusely for the way in which you have exercised your responsibilities as a citizen of free societies, and thus enabling citizens to know what their government is doing," he said in a statement.

Chomsky praised the Sydney Peace Foundation in awarding Julian Assange this Gold Medal for "courage in the pursuit of justice".

Only three other people have been awarded the gold award for courage in pursuit of human rights in the foundation's 14-year history - the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda.

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