es. Vienna, October 11, 2022
Russian opposition leader, film-maker, and journalst Vladimir Kara-Murza, 41, who co-founded an anti-war committee to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was yesterday awarded the 2022 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly (PACE).
Currently in jail facing charges of high treason, he was awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize in Strasbourg yesterday.. PACE President Tiny Kox said it took “incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place…Mr. Kara-Murza is showing this courage from his prison cell.”
Kara-Murza was arrested in April after speaking out against the war in Ukraine, treason charges followed. His wife Yevgenia acceüted the award on behalf of her husband. “The current Russian authorities – without intending to do so – have painted the portrait of a true patriot,” she said.
She also also read a note written by Kara-Murza from jail.“With the start of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, he launched a war on truth in our country,” he wrote, dedicating the award to other political prisoners in Russia and donating the €60,000 prize prize money to a fund for their families.
The prize is named after the late Czech president , playwright, and political prisoner, Vaclav Havel, to honour European civil society’s defence of human rights. Earlier this year the Russian human rights organisation Memorial shared the Nobel Peace Prize with human rights advocates from Ukraine and Belarus this year.
- AEJ August 14, 2022 One man’s struggle to save Russia’s honour