President Zelenskyy and Ukrainians awarded with Sakharov Prize

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy together with Ukrainians will be receiving the Sakharov Prize on Wednesday following a decision by Parliament’s Conference of Presidents.

While it was announced by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola in October, the prize itself will be given to the people of Ukraine later today.

“This award is for those Ukrainians fighting on the ground, those who have been forced to flee, those who have lost relatives and friends and for all those who stand up and fight for what they believe in. I know the brave people of Ukraine will not give up and neither will we", Metsola said.

She explained how Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine is inflicting enormous costs on the Ukrainian people. 

Overall, MEPs who spoke, explained how Ukrainians are not only fighting to protect their homes, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, but they are also defending freedom, democracy, the rule of law and European values.

“They are fighting on the battlefields against a brutal regime that seeks to undermine our democracy, weaken and divide our Union,” said the MEPs.

© AFP/Sergei Supinsky

The prize highlights the efforts of Zelenskyy together with the role of individuals, representatives of civil society initiatives, and state and public institutions. The Ukraine State Emergency Services, the evacuation medical unit of Angels of Taira, the Civil Liberties centre, the Yellow Ribbon Civil Resistance Movement, and Ivan Fedorov, the Melitopol Mayor, which is currently under Russian occupation, were all given an honourable mention.

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is awarded each year by the European Parliament. It was set up in 1988 to honour individuals and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is named in honour of Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov and the prize money is 50 000 euros.

Last year, Parliament awarded the prize to Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny.

Journalists Julian Assange and Shireen Abu Akleh were both nominated for this year's Sakharov Prize

It was the European People's Party that first nominated the Courageous People of Ukraine led by President Volodymir Zelenskyy. Despite this, both the Socialists and even the Conservatives nominated the Ukrainian people and Zelenskyy respectively.

Meanwhile the Greens nominated Sônia Guajajara - a Brazilian environmentalist activist, who was also a member of the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade and even a Presidential candidate in 2018.

Julian Assange (Photo: USA Today)

Journalist Julian Assange was also nominated by 41 MEPs.

Assange is an Australian editor and publisher who started the so-called WikiLeaks, which in 2010 published information from US Army Intelligence, which included information about the attack on Baghdad, phone calls and details related to the war. in Afghanistan and Iraq and what is known as Cablegate, when the same Wikileaks revealed in public communications that were going on between 274 consulates, embassies and diplomatic missions from around the world and the American State Department.

The United States had started a criminal investigation against Assange with the Government of Sweden issuing an arrest warrant on allegations of sexual abuse, something that Assange said was just an attempt to get Sweden to extradite him to the United States. From there then began a whole history of requests for extradition from the United States, asylum from Ecuador in 2012 which was then removed in 2019 and the arrest and detention in a prison in London, where Assange is still appealing against the extradition. The United States is accusing Assange of espionage, among others.

Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who worked for Al Jazeera’s Arabic television channel, was hit by an Israeli live bullet as she covered an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin

Meanwhile 43 other MEPs nominated Shireen Abu Akleh - a Palestinian-American journalist who specialized in her reporting of what is happening in the Middle East. She was a journalist with the Al Jazeera channel for 25 years.

In May of this year Abu Akleh was killed while performing her duties in the West Bank.