The EU Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize to Venezuela. María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia received the Human Rights Prize.
This year, the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize goes to the two most famous faces of the opposition in Venezuela. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia will receive the human rights prize for their fight for freedom and democracy, as EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced on Thursday in Strasbourg. The prize is endowed with 50,000 euros and will be awarded on December 18th.
After the winners were announced, MEPs stood up and applauded. The 57-year-old Machado leads the opposition against Venezuela’s authoritarian head of state Nicolás Maduro. He was declared the winner after the presidential election in July. However, the EU and the USA do not recognize Maduro’s election.
Before the election, Venezuela’s leaders had the popular opposition leader Machado declared unelectable because of allegations of corruption and “treason.” In her place, the now 75-year-old diplomat Urrutia ran against Maduro. According to the Venezuelan opposition, their candidate won the presidential election. The European Parliament also recognized Urrutia as the election winner in a resolution in September.
The democratic opposition in Venezuela had already received the Sakharov Prize in 2017. At that time, Parliament President Julio Borges was honored. Machado also received the Council of Europe’s Vaclav Havel Prize at the end of September. She went into hiding in Venezuela after the election and Urrutia went into exile in Spain. Both are threatened with arrest in their homeland.
The Sakharov Prize has been awarded to personalities or organizations since 1988. It is named after the Russian dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1989.
This year, the finalists also included peace activists from Israel and the Palestinian territories. A scientist from Azerbaijan who campaigns against corruption in his country was also in the final round.
Last year, the EU Parliament posthumously awarded the Iranian Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old died in September 2022 after being arrested for allegedly wearing a headscarf that was too loose. According to her family, she died after being abused by the moral police, something the Iranian authorities deny. Her death sparked an unprecedented protest movement.