The phrase “Sakharov Prize” has two principal meanings. The first one is the award established by the European Parliament in 1988 in honor of the academician and dissident and bestowed on individuals who “have made an exceptional contribution to the fight for human rights across the globe.” For instance, this year, it was awarded to a group of representatives of the democratic opposition in Venezuela. The second one is the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, officially established on January 30, 2001. Its founder was Soviet dissident, a member of the Helsinki Group human rights organization, ethnic Ukrainian Peter Vins, expelled from the USSR in 1979 and deprived of Soviet citizenship, who was rehabilitated during the perestroika. For 16 consecutive years, the jury determined the best independent media in Russia, but now it has gone beyond that country’s borders for the first time. Four Ukrainian media outlets – Den, Radio Svoboda, Krym.Realii, and Ukrainska Pravda – have shared the prize for journalism as an act of conscience.
The jury of 2017 includes Svetlana Alexievich, Lilia Shevtsova, Yulia Suntsova, Miyasat Muslimova, Vladimir Voinovich, Valery Borshchev, Yuri Felshtinsky, Vitaly Chelyshev, and Yuri Chernyshev. Garry Kasparov chairs the jury. “Nowhere and never was real truth liked by the philistines,” the decision on the laureates of the 2017 award emphasized. “It exasperates them, breaks down their usual rhythm of life, interferes with the measured schedule of their day. And they try, if possible, to stop it from entering their minds. The people who talk and write it annoy them, because they clearly show to them that groveling obedience is not the only way of life available to them. Therefore, the philistines denunciate them, await them with a crowbar around the corner, willingly become contract killers by shooting them in the back and knifing them in the throat... The jury of the Journalism as an Act of Conscience contest awards the Order ‘For Courage’ to editorial teams which in our time of blurred moral frontiers have remained true to the great traditions of global journalism. The Order is named after the person who benefited from the high privilege that everyone gets on their own in this world, it being to write and speak truth.”
“DEN HAS STOOD FIRM FOR 20 YEARS”
“I created the award in 2001 with the blessing of Elena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov,” the founder of the award, human rights activist, and businessman Peter Vins told our correspondent in an exclusive interview. “And 2017 marks the first time we went beyond Russia as we began to consider the work of journalists and media outlets in Ukraine and Belarus as well. This is also the first year after we developed the Order ‘For Courage.’ It was produced in Kyiv according to my design. The jury members chose the best media outlets that follow the principles of genuinely independent journalism in their work. The manner of selection was such that they nominated various media outlets as ‘candidates’ and then continued the discussion. Den was nominated by two jury members at once: the well-known political scientist and journalist Lilia Shevtsova and myself. I returned to Ukraine eight years ago, and I have read your newspaper ever since, followed your work and projects. This year, it turned out that all the members of the jury were in different parts of the planet. Kasparov was in the US, Shevtsova and Alexievich in Europe, executive secretary Georgy Borodyansky in Omsk, therefore, we had to collaborate online. Den has existed for as many as 20 years, and your team has experienced both good times and bad. Throughout this time, Den has stood firm, always advocating the freedom of the press and fighting for the independence of Ukraine. I wish you success and the strength to remain an example for others!”
