BAJ Members Awarded with Human Rights Prize

The award in the cat­e­go­ry “Per­son­al­i­ty” was pre­sent­ed to the vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and human rights defend­er Valery Shchukin. He was a jour­nal­ist for news­pa­pers Tovar­ishch and Nar­o­d­naya Volya. He has been detained dozens of times at oppo­si­tion­al ral­lies, often beat­en and the time of arrests amounts to months. The hon­orary diplo­ma was pre­sent­ed by head of the Human Rights Cen­ter Ales Biali­ats­ki.

The award “Human Rights Jour­nal­ist” went to the cor­re­spon­dent of the Euro­pean Radio for Belarus Zmici­er Lukashuk. After a num­ber of inter­views with Ukrain­ian vol­un­teers, sol­diers, human rights activists and sep­a­ratists, the Euro­ra­dio turned out to be a medi­a­tor between a vol­un­teer from Kher­son Dzmit­ry Uglach and the Prime Min­is­ter of the self-pro­claimed Donet­sk People’s Repub­lic Alexan­der Zakharchenko. It is believed that the two-week nego­ti­a­tions helped to set free sev­er­al Ukrain­ian sol­diers from cap­tiv­i­ty in the DNR.

The jour­nal­ist said that the award came quite unex­pect­ed. “Yes, the human rights top­ic is not in the first place, but among the most impor­tant ones. In some cas­es, ideas for reports appear spon­ta­neous­ly, in oth­er cas­es they are worked through and pre­pared thor­ough­ly. The top­ic of war pris­on­ers had been raised in my inter­views with Ukrain­ian sol­diers, vol­un­teers, priests and politi­cians. The result was the sto­ry described in the mate­r­i­al”.

Oth­er sto­ries by Zmici­er Lukashuk:

“Беларусь кажа, што не прызнае кампетэнцыю Камітэта па правах чалавека ААН»

Праз якую судзімасць тры апазіцыянеры не трапілі ў склад акруговай камісіі?

Пад амністыю не трапяць наркагандляры і паклёпнікі на кіраўніка дзяржавы

Юрыст: “Пагражаюць арыштам, а кажуць, што працаваць не прымушаюць!”

Ці можна выклікаць у суд чалавека з дапамогай СМС?

Дэпутат: “Людзям мяняць працу толькі таму, што мы прынялі нейкі закон?!”

Zhan­na Litv­ina, ex-chair of BAJ, pre­sent­ed flow­ers to Zmici­er Lukashuk

The Human Rights Defend­er of the Year award was pre­sent­ed to Valiantsin Ste­fanovich, deputy chair of Vias­na.

The Belaru­sian Human Rights Award was estab­lished in 2008 by the Human Rights Alliance, orga­ni­za­tion reg­is­tered in Lithua­nia. Win­ners are cho­sen by open vot­ing of lead­ers of human rights orga­ni­za­tions (includ­ing BAJ, the Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee, the human rights cen­ter Vias­na, the Human Rights Alliance and oth­ers), and for­mer lau­re­ates of the con­test.

Ear­li­er, the award in Jour­nal­ism cat­e­go­ry was pre­sent­ed to Siamion Pechanko, Aleh Hruzdzilovich, Uladz­imir Hry­dzin, Yuliya Darashke­vich, Andrei Poc­zobut, the pro­gram Maju Pra­va (I have the right) on Bel­sat, Ale­na Pankrata­va and the web­site spring96.org.