Dr Mukwege is awarded the prize for his work helping Congolese rape victims. Tributes also for Ukrainian and Azerbaijani democracy and rights defenders.
Transcript:
The EP Conference of Presidents decided to award the 2014 Sakharov Prize to Doctor Mukwege, from the Democratic Republic of Congo unanimously. Doctor Denis Mukwege, hero physician and gynaecologist to tens of thousands of women gang-raped and mutilated in the DRC. He has criticised the international community and Congolese leaders for failing to stop the barbarity, and fled the country after surviving an assassination attempt. It is a signal from the European Parliament to the African people that we support their fight against this disgraceful form of treating people. There was strong support for runners-up EuroMaidan, the Ukrainian movement leading the resistance to former President Yanukovych after he rejected Ukraine’s EU Association agreement last year. It’s a symbol of resistance to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and to its backing for rebels in eastern Ukraine. EuroMaidan's leaders are to be invited to the ceremony. They have done a magnificent job in bringing attention to the situation in Ukraine and for their reaching out for EU cooperation and membership. And an all-group parliamentary delegation will visit Azerbaijan to campaign on behalf of the other runner-up: Leyla Yunus, a rights and democracy activist in pre-trial detention on what supporters say are fabricated charges. The prize has been overshadowed by judicial steps by the Russian government to liquidate Memorial, an umbrella group for several rights organisations, formed in the name of Andrei Sakharov, renowned physicist and torch bearer of the human rights struggle in the Soviet Union.
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