Ana Corina Sosa, daughter of Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado, holds the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded on the Parliamentary Meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, japanese France, on Monday, September 30, 2024. | Picture credit score: AP
The Council of Europe on Monday (September 30, 2024) awarded its 2024 Rights Prize to Venezuelan opposition determine María Corina Machado for her struggle for democracy underneath the heavy-handed authorities of President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado mentioned she was “deeply moved, honored and grateful” to be the primary Latin American to win the award, which is called after the late Czech dissident, playwright and post-communist president Vaclav Havel.
She is at the moment hiding in Venezuela following the presidential elections that Maduro claims to have received, a end result furiously questioned by the opposition.
The award was obtained on his behalf on the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg by his daughter Ana.
“I wish to dedicate this recognition to the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who, on daily basis, embody Havel’s values and concepts,” Machado mentioned in a video speech.
His motion demonstrated “the victory of the democrats over the dictatorship,” he mentioned, including: “At this time our battle continues, as a result of the reality persists till it prevails.”
Machado, 56, performed a key function in Venezuela’s presidential election in July. Though the authorities proclaimed Maduro the winner, the opposition believes that its candidate Edmundo González Urrutia received.
Ms. Machado is at the moment hiding in Venezuela, amid a wave of arrests of members of her interior circle. González Urrutia went into exile in Spain on September 8.
Earlier winners embrace the 2023 winner, Turkish philanthropist and civil society activist Osman Kavala, who stays in jail following his arrest in November 2017, and the 2022 winner, Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Kara-Murza was current on the ceremony in Strasbourg following his launch earlier this yr after greater than two years behind bars in Russia.
Revealed – September 30, 2024 08:42 pm IST
