Navalni, who is a staunch opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, remains in a jail in his country.
The European Parliament on Wednesday awarded the Sakharov Prize for the defense of human rights and freedom of thought to the imprisoned Russian opponent Alexei Navalni, highlighting his fight “without respite” for democracy and against corruption in his country.
“He has fought without respite the corruption of the Vladimir Putin regime. This has cost him his freedom and almost his life, ”the head of the European Parliament, the Italian David Sassoli, said on Twitter.
“On behalf of the European Parliament, I ask for his immediate and unconditional release,” the Finnish environmental MEP Heidi Hautala, vice president of the institution, officially demanded in the hemicycle in Strasbourg (eastern France).
“The Russian authorities must stop all harassment, all intimidation and all attacks against the opposition, civil society and the media,” he added.
Russian authorities did not immediately react to the announcement.
Navalni’s organization, banned in Russia for some months, claimed that the imprisoned opponent Sakharov rewards all Russians who fight for “the truth.”
“This award is an award in the first place for people who are not indifferent and who even in the darkest periods are not afraid to tell the truth,” the anti-corruption fund founded by Navalni said on Twitter.
In a context of tensions between Russia and the West, Navalni’s election was quickly greeted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
This award is “recognition of the important role it has played for many years in defending the values of democracy and being a strong voice in Russia,” the head of the Atlantic Alliance told the press in Brussels.
Navalni’s candidacy had received the support of the PPE (right), the majority in the institution, and the centrist group Renew, the third political force.
On their side, the S&D (left) and environmental groups had proposed to reward Afghan women who fight for equality and their freedom before the Taliban regime, and to whom the European Parliament also “paid tribute”.
The former president of Bolivia, the right-wing Jeanine Áñez, was also among the finalists.
Preliminary step to the Nobel
The main opponent of Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalni is jailed for fraud in a case widely regarded as political repression.
Navalni nearly died of poisoning in August 2020, in a fact that the West attributed to Russian services. The Kremlin denied any involvement. The opponent was cured in Germany, which strained relations between Berlin and Moscow, and was arrested as soon as he returned to Russia.
After the Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, sentenced to life imprisonment in China for “separatism” and awarded in 2019, the award named after the great dissident from the former Soviet Union Andrei Sakharov was awarded in 2020 to the “democratic opposition” to the president Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko and received by its leader Svetlana Tijanovskaya.
Launched in 1998, the Sakharov Prize annually rewards individuals or organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is endowed with the sum of 50,000 euros (about $ 58,000).
On several occasions, this award was a step prior to the Nobel Peace Prize, as in the case of the Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege and the Yazidi Nadia Murad, the young Pakistani Malala Yousafzai or Nelson Mandela, the first Sakharov winner.
This year’s Nobel Peace Laureate along with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, Dimitri Muratov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the last media openly critical of power in Russia, claimed that it would have given this award to Navalni, the Russian president’s black beast.
The Sakharov Prize will be officially awarded during a ceremony in the hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on December 15. (I)
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