The fight against Russia was estimated at 50 thousand euros. Sentsov received a well-deserved reward from the West
On Wednesday, December 12, in Strasbourg, the sister of Ukrainian terrorist Oleg Sentsov, convicted in Russia, Natalya Kaplan, received the Andrei Sakharov European Parliament Prize “For Freedom of Thought” awarded to her brother, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The award ceremony took place at a meeting of the European Parliament, where Sentsova’s sister read out her brother’s address.
“I cannot be present in this room now, but you can hear my words, even if they are spoken by someone else. The word is a person’s main tool, and often the only one, especially when everything else has been taken away from him... There are people whose words can do a lot. There are people with power and opportunity, but they use the power of their words in different ways. You can call for resignation and surrender, or, on the contrary, you can call for resistance and fight, even when there is no chance of surviving, but only a chance of dying. And it’s not so important how long you lived, it’s how you lived,” his sister quoted Sentsov’s pathetic words.
“Andrei Sakharov is a person who is certainly worth emulating, and to stand even a little bit next to him is a great honor for me. He raised the bar very high for education and talent, intelligence and good manners, dignity and humanism, but I hope that I can still do something in order to feel that I deserve this award,” Sentsov’s speech says.
Sentsov’s lawyer Dmitry Dinze was also present at the event.
The European Parliament also distributed a video of the award ceremony.
Let us recall that the Sakharov Prize has been awarded annually by the European Parliament since 1988 in 4 areas: protection of minority rights; respect for international law; developing democracy and upholding the rule of law, as well as protecting human rights and freedoms, in particular the right to freedom of speech. This award is typically given to individuals and organizations that defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. The material equivalent of the award is 50 thousand euros. The current nominees were announced on September 27 by the European Parliament's External Affairs and Development Committees, as well as the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Russia has already managed to comment on this event.
“The presentation of the Sakharov Prize to Oleg Sentsov by the European Parliament is a striking and very sad example of the politicization of human rights activities. This is another anti-Russian attack. The activities of Sentsov, who is accused of terrorism(!), cannot in any way meet the criteria of the Sakharov Prize. Moreover, he cannot be put on a par with such people as Nelson Mandela, Lyudmila Alekseeva, Sergei Kovalev or Kofi Annan. (All of them were Sakharov Prize laureates in different years). This is simply an outrage at the meaning of an authoritative award named after a great Russian,” said Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The Duma politician also recalled “double standards” using the example of the fate of another “victim of the Kremlin” promoted by anti-Russian propaganda – Ukrainian Nadezhda Savchenko.
“With the same award, they are trying to prick Russia, implicitly accusing it of allegedly carrying out “repression” against “human rights activists,” and providing so-called support for Ukraine. Only we all remember very well how they defended Nadya Savchenko in the European Parliament and PACE when she was in a Russian prison, and how now they spit on her rights when she is essentially serving a political prison term in a Ukrainian prison. At the same time, the arrest of journalist Kirill Vyshinsky in Ukraine, the persecution of human rights activists in Latvia, Lithuania are ignored... Again hypocrisy, again double standards,” Slutsky complained.
However, it is worth recognizing that Sentsov’s name quite logically and organically fits into a number of Russophobes, among which are those listed by Slutsky: Sergei Kovalev, who defended the Chechen terrorists Dudaeva, and the recently deceased Lyudmila Alekseeva, who signed a petition condemning the annexation of Crimea to Russia. So, awarding Oleg Sentsov a prize named after the Soviet academician, who became a symbol and weapon of the Cold War of the West against the USSR, of which the Russian Federation is the legal successor, is absolutely logical from the point of view of Western politicians.
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