The democratic opposition in Belarus © Nadia Buzhan / Nasha Niva 2020 Sakharov Prize laureate for defending democracy The European Parliament prize for freedom of thought The democratic opposition in Belarus The democratic opposition in Belarus, walks of life and professions called on represented by the Coordination the president to step down. The regime Council for the Transfer of Power, is an responded with an unprecedented initiative of the brave women Sviatlana level of violence and repression, but the Tsikhanouskaya, Svetlana Alexievich, Belarusian society did not give up and Maryia Kalesnikava, Volha Kavalkova and has continued to protest. Veranika Tsapkala, and the political and civil-society figures Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Brave women such as Tsikhanouskaya, Ales Bialiatski, Siarhei Dyleuski, Stsiapan Alexievich, Kalesnikava and Kavalkova, Putsila and Mikola Statkevich. members of the Coordination Council presidium, along with the political In August 2020, the democratic opposition activist Tsapkala, have become symbols in Belarus began an unprecedented of the opposition and have offered process to mobilise society in peaceful hope to Belarusians. They have been mass protests for democracy in a supported by dissidents, other political country long considered the last activists, human rights defenders, dictatorship in Europe. The protests opposition politicians and youth leaders. began in the light of elections that saw Aliaksandr Lukashenka claim his sixth The leader of the Coordination Council, term as president in a contest marred Tsikhanouskaya, has become the by allegations of widespread electoral emblem of this peaceful Belarusian fraud. The united opposition insisted revolution. Despite having no prior that the leading opposition candidate, political experience, she stepped in as Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had won the independent presidential candidate a decisive first-round victory with at in place of her spouse, the blogger and least 60 % of the vote. They called dissident Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who was on Lukashenka to start negotiations arrested on trumped-up charges and to transfer power and created the jailed by Lukashenka. Two days after the Coordination Council to that end. election Tsikhanouskaya was escorted directly to the Lithuanian border by In the weeks that followed, the streets Belarusian officials. Now in exile, she of Minsk were filled with record-breaking has been the voice of the civic nation demonstrations attracting over of Belarus throughout Europe. During 200 000 people. Demonstrators from all her visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, Tsikhanouskaya proclaimed that former Sakharov and Nobel Peace Belarus was experiencing a democratic Prize nominee, Statkevich, a prominent revolution and striving to assert its right Belarusian politician and veteran of the to freely and fairly elect its leaders and opposition to Lukashenka, and Putsila, take charge of its own destiny. the founder of NEXTA, a channel for sharing information, photos and videos Two other brave women followed of the peaceful protests in Belarus and a similar course of action to the violence perpetrated against them Tsikhanouskaya. Tsapkala, a business by law enforcement. manager and political activist, became her husband Valery’s representative at In a resolution adopted in September Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign rallies after 2020, the European Parliament he was denied permission to register condemned the Belarusian authorities as a presidential candidate and left the for their violent repression of peaceful country, taking their children with him. protests. MEPs affirmed that the Meanwhile, Kalesnikava, a musician, elections were conducted in a ‘flagrant political activist and Coordination violation of all internationally recognised Council member, ran Viktar Babaryka’s standards’ and that the Parliament presidential campaign until his arrest, would no longer recognise Lukashenka after which she lent her support to as President of Belarus once his term of Tsikhanouskaya. office expired on 5 November. The presidium of the Coordination MEPs welcomed the Coordination Council also includes Alexievich, Council as an ‘interim representation the winner of the Nobel Prize for of the people demanding democratic Literature in 2015, and Kavalkova, change in Belarus’ that is open to all Tsikhanouskaya’s representative when political and social stakeholders, and the council was formed, along with called for EU sanctions against the Dyleuski, the leader of the Minsk group of individuals responsible for Tractor Works strike committee. The falsifying the election results and for the Belarusian authorities have either violent repression in Belarus, including imprisoned or exiled many of the most President Lukashenka. prominent pro-democracy activists, including Tsikhanouski, Bialiatski, a The Laureates 2019 Ilham Tohti 2004 The Belarusian Association 2018 Oleg Sentsov of Journalists 2017 Democratic opposition in Venezuela 2003 Kofi Annan and the staff of the United Nations 2016 Nadia Murad and Lamya Aji Bashar 2002 Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas 2015 Raif Badawi 2001 Izzat Ghazzawi, Nurit 2014 Denis Mukwege Peled-Elhanan, Dom Zacarias 2013 Malala Yousafzai Kamwenho 2012 Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi 2000 ¡Basta Ya! 2011 Arab Spring (Mohamed Bouazizi, 1999 Xanana Gusmão Ali Ferzat, Asmaa Mahfouz, Ahmed 1998 Ibrahim Rugova al-Sanusi and Razan Zaitouneh) 1997 Salima Ghezali 2010 Guillermo Fariñas 1996 Wei Jingsheng 2009 Memorial (Oleg Orlov, Sergei 1995 Leyla Zana Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, 1994 Taslima Nasreen on behalf of Memorial and all other 1993 Oslobođenje human rights defenders in Russia) 1992 Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo 2008 Hu Jia 1991 Adem Demaçi 2007 Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman 1990 Aung San Suu Kyi 2006 Aliaksandr Milinkevich 1989 Alexander Dubček 2005 Damas de Blanco, Hauwa Ibrahim, 1988 Nelson Mandela and Anatoli Reporters Without Borders Marchenko (posthumously) The Sakharov Prize Awarded for the first time in 1988 to the rule of law. Several laureates, including Nelson Mandela and Anatoli Marchenko, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Denis the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Mukwege and Nadia Murad, went on to Thought is the highest tribute paid by win the Nobel Peace Prize. the European Union to human rights work. It gives recognition to individuals, The European Parliament awards the groups and organisations that have Sakharov Prize, with its EUR 50 000 made an outstanding contribution endowment, at a formal plenary sitting to protecting freedom of thought. in Strasbourg towards the end of each Through the prize and its associated year. Each of the Parliament’s political network the EU assists laureates who groups may nominate candidates, as are supported and empowered in their may individual MEPs (the support of efforts to defend their causes. at least 40 MEPs is required for each candidate). The nominees are presented The prize has so far been awarded to at a joint meeting of the Committee dissidents, political leaders, journalists, on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on lawyers, civil-society activists, writers, Development and the Subcommittee on mothers, wives, minority leaders, an Human Rights, and the members of the anti-terrorist group, peace activists, an anti- committees vote on a shortlist of three torture activist, a cartoonist, long-serving candidates. The final winner or winners prisoners of conscience, a film-maker, the of the Sakharov Prize are chosen by the United Nations as a body and even a child Conference of Presidents, a European campaigning for the right to education. Parliament body led by the president It promotes in particular freedom of and which includes the leaders of all expression, the rights of minorities, respect the political groups represented in for international law, the development of the Parliament, making the choice of democracy and the implementation of laureates a truly European choice. Andrei Sakharov Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) was a him the Peace Prize in 1975, he was renowned physicist, human rights activist, ‘a spokesman for the conscience of dissident and advocate of reform in mankind’. He was not allowed to receive the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics his Nobel Prize in person, but neither (USSR). A pioneer in nuclear physics repression nor exile could break his and the father of the Soviet hydrogen resistance. bomb, Andrei Sakharov was 32 years old when he became a full member of Andrei Sakharov was exiled to the closed the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet city of Gorky in 1980, after he publicly Union. However, by the late 1950s, he protested against the 1979 Soviet was becoming increasingly concerned military intervention in Afghanistan. about the consequences of nuclear While in exile, he lived under tight testing and the political and moral police surveillance. In recognition of implications of his work, which could Sakharov’s lifelong commitment to lead to the deaths of huge numbers of human rights, in 1988 the European people. In the 1960s he became a critic Parliament established a prize named of the nuclear arms race, and as a result after him. In the words of Jean-François was banned from all top-secret military Deniau, who led the initiative, Sakharov work and stripped of his privileges. was a European citizen who was the personification of freedom of thought In 1970 he became one of the and expression and who had decided, co-founders of the Committee on because of his convictions and his Human Rights in the USSR, and started conscience, to renounce all the