Polish-Belarusian Andrzej Poczobut and Georgian colleague Mzia Amaglobeli are praised by EU Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola.
Their courage has made them symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy, says Metsola in the session hall in Strasbourg when she announces this year's winners of the parliament's Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
Poczobut was arrested in 2021 in Belarus and was sentenced two years later to eight years in prison. Amaglobeli was arrested in Georgia in January this year and has been sentenced to two years in prison.
The Sakharov Prize – named after the Soviet nuclear physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov – has been awarded since 1988. Last year, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was honored, who this year also received the Nobel Peace Prize.
