One of the journalists, behind bars in Belarus for covering anti-government rallies, refused to seek a pardon despite his heart condition. Another, jailed in Georgia, defiantly stood up at her trial and urged the opposition to keep protesting “until victory.”
On Wednesday, they were honored with the prize named for the late Andrei Sakharov, one of the Soviet Union’s most prominent human rights activists and symbols of courage.
Andrzej Poczobut of Belarus and Mzia Amaghlobeli of Georgia received the European Parliament’s most prestigious human rights award after they were imprisoned on “trumped-up charges simply for doing their work and for speaking out against injustice,” said the body’s president, Roberta Metsola.
“Their courage has made them symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy,” Metsola said.
Here is what to know about the winners:
Andrzej Poczobut: Freedom is ‘within a person’
Poczobut, a leader of the Polish minority in Belarus and a journalist for Poland’s leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, was arrested in his western hometown of Grodno in March 2021.
In February 2023, he was convicted on accusations of “damaging national security” for his coverage of the mass demonstrations in 2020 in the capital of Minsk and elsewhere following the disputed election that gave Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office.
Poczobut had stayed in Belarus despite the subsequent crackdown in which 65,000 people were arrested, thousands were beaten by police, and tens of thousands fled abroad.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison on the charges that human rights activists denounced as politically motivated.
Poczobut, 52, has staunchly refused to plead guilty to the charges or ask Lukashenko for a pardon. In a letter from prison, Poczobut wrote that “freedom is not a place but is within a person.”
He was ordered to serve his sentence in one of the harshest maximum-security penal colonies, which is located in the eastern city of Novopolotsk. He suffers from a heart ailment, hypertension and vision problems, and reportedly underwent surgery at a prison hospital to remove skin ulcers.
According to the Viasna human rights group, Poczobut was deprived of needed medications and was repeatedly put in solitary confinement for refusing to do work he could not perform due to his health.
He’s in a solitary confinement now, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. He also was held incommunicado for eight months, denying him a chance to see his wife, Oksana, and their daughter and son.
“The authorities are taking revenge on Poczobut for uncompromisingly speaking the truth about the peaceful protests in Belarus and the brutal terror of the Lukashenko regime,” exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press.
She said his health is deteriorating every day, and “without proper medical care, he is simply slowly dying.”
Tsikhanouskaya praised the Sakharov Prize as recognizing the winners’ courage and a “powerful gesture of solidarity with the people of Belarus and Georgia in their struggle for freedom and a European future.”
She told AP the award “is a clear signal to all dictators: journalists cannot be silenced.”
Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, voiced hope the award will contribute to Poczobut’s release.
“This award is very important to all 30 imprisoned Belarusian journalists who are sacrificing their lives for the opportunity to report the truth about the catastrophic situation in Belarus, which has become a black hole in Europe,” Bastunets said.
Mzia Amaghlobeli: ‘You must never lose faith’
The founder of two independent media outlets, Amaghlobeli was convicted in August of slapping a police chief at an anti-government protest in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi in January and sentenced to two years in prison.
Her conviction was widely condemned by rights groups as an attack on press freedom by the ruling Georgian Dream party that has faced Western criticism for backsliding on democracy.
Amaghlobeli, 50, said the police chief she was accused of slapping had spat at her and tried to attack her. Her lawyer told the court she reacted emotionally after falling in a stampede and seeing those close to her get arrested.
At her trial, she urged the opposition to continue the cause.
“You must never lose faith in your own capabilities. There is still time. The fight continues— until victory!” she said.
Amaghlobeli is the founder and manager of the Georgian investigative news outlet Batumelebi, which covers politics, corruption and human rights. She also founded its companion publication, Netgazeti.
Eter Turadze, editor in chief of Batumelebi, said the Sakharov Prize “strengthens our belief that we are not alone in this fight, and that the pursuit of justice knows no borders.”
Amaghlobeli is “a symbol of the fight against injustice, and for freedom, dignity, and democratic values in Georgia,” she said.
“Hopefully, this recognition will ease, even slightly, the humiliation she endured during her arrest and subsequent trial,” Turadze added.
Georgia has seen widespread political unrest and protests since last year’s election in which Georgian Dream retained control of parliament. Protesters and the opposition said the result was illegitimate amid allegations of vote-rigging aided by Russia.
The critics accuse Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow, accusations the party denies. It recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
Turadze appealed to the international community to help secure the release of Amaghlobeli and other prisoners of conscience and impose sanctions on those involved in her prosecution and imprisonment.
“In Georgia today, being a journalist is tantamount to self-sacrifice — journalists have to work daily in a hostile and dangerous environment,” Turadze said. “They are not only persecuted, blackmailed, and harassed but are also deliberately attacked and physically assaulted.”
___
Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Megrelidze reported from Tbilisi, Georgia. Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
