The jury of the Olof Palme Prize has awarded three Russian human rights activists in 2004 . The Prize will be given to the head of Helsinki Group in Moscow, Lyudmila Alekseyeva (picture), the president of the Human Rights Institute, Sergei Kovalyov, and the reporter of the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Anna Politkovskaya. (18-JAN-05)
The annual prize, which honers the memory of the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, carries $ 50 000 cash award and a diploma. The Jury called the winners “influential symbols of the long struggle for the human rights in the Russian Federation.”Each of the prize winners will receive 50 000 $.
Alekseyeva and Kovalyov (picture) had been among the most well-known opponents of the Soviet regime. In the post-Soviet the Russian Federation, Kovalyov had been a HR ombudsman and a top member of the Russian liberal party, Democratic Choice of the Russian Federation. Politkovskaya became famous after her reports from the Chechen Republic. She wanted to go to Beslan when the school there was seized by an armed gang but she fell ill in the airplane. She was heavily poisoned during her Beslan investigation.
Photos: www.hro.org
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