Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Kremlin critics remain in custody
Navalny daughter accepts award
The EU Parliament awards Alexej Navalny the Sakharov Prize for his fight against corruption in Russia’s state apparatus. But the Kremlin critic is still in prison. Daughter Daria therefore appears in his place in Brussels. Moscow is likely to get angry at the award.
The daughter of Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny has received the Sakharov Prize for Democracy and Human Rights in the European Parliament on behalf of her imprisoned father. “Although it is great to come here, it is probably exactly what the worst nightmare of my family and me looks like,” said Daria Navalnaya in Strasbourg. If she speaks on behalf of her father, it means that he is still in prison.
At the same time, she referred to the fate of political activists who were awarded great prizes. “Where are last year’s winners – the Belarusian opposition – now? Most of them in prison.” The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chinese dissident Lui Xiaobo also died in prison.
At the presentation of the 50,000 euro award, EU Parliament President David Sassoli praised “the determination with which Alexej Navalny fights for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
The 45-year-old opposition member Navalny is one of the greatest adversaries of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. He has been in custody in Russia since the beginning of the year and was sentenced to more than two years in a camp in February for alleged parole violations. The EU Parliament demands his immediate release.
The award of the renowned Sakharov Prize to Navalny is likely to be perceived by the Kremlin as an affront. Relations between Russia and the Western states are currently particularly tense because of the deployment of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.
The EU Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize to people who have “stood up in a special way for human rights” and for democracy. The award is named after the late Russian dissident and physicist Andrei Sakharov.