Europe on Monday awarded its Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize to Maksym Butkevych, a prominent Ukrainian rights activist and co-founder of the independent Hromadske radio station, who was released from Russian captivity last year.
Butkevych volunteered as a platoon commander in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) after the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, was captured by occupying soldiers in 2022, and was then sentenced to 13 years in a Russian prison.
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After two years of harsh conditions in captivity, he was released in October 2024 as part of a 195-prisoner swap brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
“I have been inside the system that does not value human rights,” Butkevych said in his acceptance speech, wearing a black shirt reading “Ukrainian prisoners of war: you are not forgotten.”
“Human rights – one has to face their absence to understand their value,” he added. “They are not to be taken for granted.”
The 48-year-old co-founder of the independent Hromadske radio station and ZMINA human rights center in Kyiv became the first Ukrainian to win the award named after the late Czech dissident, playwright and post-communist president Vaclav Havel.
The runners-up announced by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the council’s top prize were Georgian journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli and Azerbaijani journalist Ulvi Hasanli, both currently political prisoners in their respective countries.
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“Without the right to freedom of expression and free, independent and pluralistic media, there is no true democracy,” said PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos to open the awards ceremony.
He pointed out that the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform had recorded 171 journalists in detention in Europe as of this last winter.
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