In his statement before the award ceremony for the 2024 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, Vladimir Kara-Murza – the prize winner in 2022 – conveyed his deep respect to this year’s finalists and paid tribute to the past recipients who were still held in captivity “for the only ‘crime’ of expressing opinions that differ from the opinion of their governments”.” We must continue to fight for their release and for the release of all those unjustly imprisoned around the world,” he said.
Mr Kara-Murza, who was released with other political prisoners in a prisoner exchange on 1 August 2024, added: “I am only here today because of you, because of sustained efforts by good people in democratic nations, including so many people in this chamber, that proved stronger than any dictatorship can ever hope to be.”
He viewed the Prize first and foremost as the parliamentarians’ recognition of all his fellow Russians “who had the courage to stand up to Putin’s regime and to call out his murderous war in Ukraine – in full knowledge of what the price of that stand would be.”
Mr Kara-Murza also underlined that, according to human rights organisations, more than 20,000 people were detained by police across Russia since February 2022 for anti-war protests, a thousand being criminally indicted, tried, or imprisoned for this charge, and more than 9,000 being subjected to administrative arrests or penalties. “The list goes on, with more than 1,300 known political prisoners in Putin’s Russia,” he said.
Although “it is impossible to judge the true state of public opinion in a country that imprisons you for expressing it”, he believes that “everyone saw through the lie peddled by Putin’s propaganda that all Russians backed his regime and his war”.
“The best promise of long-term security, stability, and democracy on our continent; the best promise for a Europe that would finally be whole, free, and at peace lies with a democratic Russia,” Mr Kara-Murza concluded. “Let us work together to make it a reality.”
