“The honorable guest is unable to attend the Politiken Freedom Prize awarding ceremony”
This was repeated again and again during the ceremony
in Copenhagen on 14 November, at which the Danish edition Politiken awarded its
Freedom Prize to Ales Bialiatski and the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, headed
by him. A poster with a graphic portrait of Ales Bialiatski hung on the wall to
symbolize the symbolic presence of the prize-holder.
The prize was accepted by Valiantsin Stefanovich on behalf of “Viasna”. “Many
well-known people have received prizes of this leading Danish newspaper,
including Garry Kasparov from Russia.
This year the Prize Committee decided to award Ales Bialiatski and “Viasna”.
The ceremony was held in the newspaper’s house. There were many journalists,
literary workers, human rights defenders and those who are interested in the
situation of human rights in Belarus.
The present public was shown a video about Ales,
after which the prize was presented.
To mark this even, Politiken published an article under the title “We Need to
Express Our Respect to Ales Bialiatski”, where it is
As Valiantsin Stefanovich said, the prize consists of a metallic statuette of a
man, on which the names of its holders are carved – Ales Bialiatski and the
Human Rights Center “Viasna”, and 100,000 Danish kronas (about 14,000 Euros).
The human rights defender stated that “Viasna” would pass this money to victims
of the Belarusian regime and the families of the repressed. A special
charitable account would be opened in Belarus for this purpose.
