Belarus Human Rights Award Laureates Honored on the Eve of December 10

Siarhei Draz­dous­ki, coor­di­na­tor of the Office for Human Rights for Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties was named Human Rights Defend­er of the Year.

Dzmit­ry Drozd and Adarya Hushtyn were hon­ored with the prize Jour­nal­ist of the Year. Dzmit­ry Drozd, for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er, is a his­to­ry writer and a jour­nal­ist, con­tribut­ing to dif­fer­ent mass media. Adarya Hushtyn is a jour­nal­ist for the Bela­PAN agency web­site naviny.by.

The award Cam­paign of the Year was pre­sent­ed to the mag­a­zine Ime­na which cov­ers sto­ries of peo­ple in trou­ble and encour­ages its read­ers help solve the prob­lems. The founder of the mag­a­zine Kat­siary­na Siniuk was not present at the meet­ing, but sent her greet­ing list, say­ing that they ded­i­cat­ed this award to the project Min­sk Club House “Open Soul”, a civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tion which has cur­rent­ly sought sup­port from Ime­na to help in reha­bil­i­ta­tion of men­tal­ly ill peo­ple.

23 human rights orga­ni­za­tions and ini­tia­tives took part in pick­ing the most dis­tin­guished.

For­mer­ly, lau­re­ates of the human rights award were Anrzej Poc­zobut, Aleh Hruzdzilovich, Yuliya Darashke­vich, TV pro­gram «Mayu Pra­va» on Bel­sat, and oth­ers.

The award was found­ed in 2008 by Human Rights Alliance, and has become a nation­al award for all Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions since 2011. Co-founders of the award are Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Belaru­sian Doc­u­ments Cen­ter, Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee, Human Rights Cen­ter Vias­na, Belarus Human Rights House in Vil­nius, Sol­i­dar­i­ty Com­mit­tee, Cen­ter for Legal Trans­for­ma­tion Lawtrend, Human Rights Alliance, Human Rights Ini­tia­tive, Civ­il Ini­tia­tive against Law­less­ness in courts and prosecutor’s office.