European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek announced the winner this morning (22 October), after the presidents of the EU assembly's political groups had made their decision.
Buzek expressed hope that the decision to award the prize to Memorial would "contribute to ending the circle of fear and violence surrounding human rights defenders in the Russian Federation".
A Polish European People's Party source had last month told EurActiv that the Memorial activists - nominated by Polish EPP MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski and 59 others - had a "great chance" of getting the prize, a view confirmed by other parliamentary pundits (EurActiv 30/09/09).
"By awarding this year's prize to Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva on behalf of Memorial and all other human rights defenders in Russia, we hope […] to advance our message that civil society activists everywhere must be free to exercise their most basic rights of freedom of thought and freedom of expression," Parliament President Buzek said this morning.
The Sakharov Prize was established by the Parliament in December 1988 as a means of honouring "individuals or organisations who dedicate their lives to the defence of human rights and freedoms, particularly the right to free expression".
MEPs hailed the victorious Memorial for "promoting the truth about the political repression of the Soviet Union and fighting against current human rights abuses in post-Soviet states to ensure their democratic future".
The Russian NGO seeks to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms, safeguard the rights of minorities, and support the development of democracy and the rule of law in the former Soviet space.
It monitors and reports on hot spots of actual and potential conflict and human rights abuse including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Crimea, North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Russia itself, focusing in particular on Chechnya.
In November 2007, Memorial chair Oleg Orlov was abducted in Ingushetia, together with three journalists, before being beaten, threatened with execution and released.
Sergei Kovalev, who founded the first Soviet human rights association in 1969, is an outspoken critic of authoritarian tendencies in the administrations of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and resigned in protest as head of Yeltsin's presidential human rights commission in 1996.
The other winner, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva, campaigns for fair trials of arrested dissidents and objective coverage in the media. She is a vocal critic of the Kremlin's human rights record, particularly towards foreigners.
MEPs harden Russia stance
By awarding the prize to Memorial, the European Parliament appears to have hardened its stance towards Russia. Indeed, this is not the first time that MEPs have found themselves at odds with Moscow.
Most recently, the European Parliament hosted a conference on 1939’s Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which split Poland in two between the USSR and Germany and led to the incorporation of Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union.
The discussions exposed a political divide between socialist (S&D) members and the centre-right European People's Party on the issue of whether Nazi and communist crimes should be considered on an equal footing (EurActiv 15/10/09).
The Sakharov Prize, consisting of a certificate and a cheque for €50,000, will be awarded at a ceremony in Strasbourg on 16 December.
