WaPo | “It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place,” Tiny Kox, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said this week in awarding Washington Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza the Václav Havel Prize for his defense of human rights in his home country of Russia.
Kara-Murza is currently in a Russian prison awaiting trial on trumped-up charges of distributing “fake news” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His wife, Evgenia, accepted the prestigious award on his behalf in Strasbourg, France, on Oct. 10. The prize is named for the former president of Czechoslovakia, who — before he rose to that position after the 1989 revolution that overthrew the communist regime — himself spent many years in prison for his dissident activities. The Post is publishing Vladimir Kara-Murza’s acceptance speech below.
In his remarks, Kara-Murza draws an apt parallel between Russia’s current aggression toward Ukraine and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Russian soldiers invading Ukraine display World War II battle flags on their vehicles and use slogans praising Stalin along with Vladimir Putin. In 1968, Czechs launched a reform campaign — known as the “Prague Spring” — that aimed to create a more liberal society by limiting the powers of the Communist state. Soviet leaders felt threatened by the prospect of a liberal democracy blossoming within the Warsaw Pact, so they sent in tanks, crushing a movement whose members included Havel and many other dissidents.
Kara-Murza, like Havel, has spent his life defending the truth from the assault of dictators. The award of this prize affirms that triumphant continuity.
0 comments:
Post a Comment