Journalist Aleh Hruzdzilovich to receive Hope for Freedom Award

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Lithuan­ian Union of Jour­nal­ists said the award was a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists in Belarus.

“Belaru­sians become the award win­ners for the third year in a row [in 2020, it was award­ed to Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, Ale­na Talk­a­cho­va, Tat­siana Kar­avenka­va, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Daria Chultso­va, in 2021, it was tak­en by Andrei Alik­san­drau – editor’s note],” said Kaz­imieras Starke­vičius, mem­ber of Seimas of Lithua­nia, at the pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny. “I am very glad that our fam­i­ly, as the founder of the prize, can con­tribute to this solemn mis­sion.

In his speech, Aleh Hruzdzilovich men­tioned the jour­nal­ists who are still behind bards and whom he met in prison – Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau, Mary­na Zolata­va, Andrei Skurko, Yagor Martsi­novich, Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau:

“I hope they will also be able to receive awards once they have got­ten out of jail.”

Despite the dif­fi­cult con­text, the jour­nal­ist is opti­mistic about the future: “In August 2020, when we were work­ing on the front lines, we didn’t ful­ly imag­ine that 2020 would be dif­fer­ent from the 2006 or 2010 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paigns. It turned out to be a real rev­o­lu­tion. It’s gone under­ground now. But it is there and it is bound to be there. I am sure that future Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists will not be ashamed of their peo­ple.”