The Council of Europe on Monday awarded the 2022 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize to imprisoned Russian rival Vladimir Kara-Murza, whom the Russian court recently accused of “treason”.
“Today, the opposition power in Russia demands incredible courage,” said Tiny Kox, head of the parliamentary assembly of the European organization, headquartered in Strasbourg (northeast France).
Created in 2013, the Vaclav Havel award, worth 60,000 euros ($58,160 at current exchange rates), recognizes exceptional actions by civil society in defense of human rights.
In 2021, the prize was awarded to her Belarusian rival Maria Kolésnikova, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison. To feminist Loujain al-Hathloul, who spent more than a thousand days behind bars in Saudi Arabia in 2020.
41-year-old Vladimir Kara-Murza is still one of the last people in the country to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This former journalist was friends with opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015, and worked with the organization of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch who had been critical of Putin in exile.
Kara-Murza claims that she was poisoned twice by Russian agents in 2015 and 2017 due to her political activities.
The rival, who was arrested in Russia for criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was charged Thursday with “treason”, a crime punishable by heavy prison terms.
In mid-March, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe due to the war in Ukraine and has not been a member of the European Convention on Human Rights since 16 September.
source: Noticias
