Russian Dissident, Twice Poisoned, Wins Courage Award

Russian Dissident, Twice Poisoned,
Wins Courage Award

GENEVA, February 5, 2018 – A coalition of 25 non-governmental human rights groups announced today that leading Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who nearly died after being poisoned twice in Moscow, has been chosen to receive the 2018 Courage Award at the 10th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, a global gathering of human rights champions and former political prisoners.

The award ceremony will be held on Tuesday, February 20, 2018, where Mr. Kara-Murza will address an expected audience of 700 U.N. diplomats, human rights activists, students and journalists from around the world. The opening event will take place at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva.

Mr. Kara-Murza is a renowned journalist, pro-democracy activist, and author of four books. He serves as vice-chair of the Open Russia movement, and chair of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, named after the Russian opposition leader, his longtime colleague, who was assassinated in 2015.

Mr. Kara-Murza has testified before parliaments in Europe and North America, and played a key role in the campaign to pass the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 U.S. law sanctioning Russian human rights violators, which spawned similar legislation in Canada, Britain, Estonia, and Lithuania.

“I am honored and deeply humbled by this award,’’ said Mr. Kara-Murza. Past laureates include Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng and jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

Mr. Kara-Murza, who holds a graduate degree from Cambridge, is also the director of two documentary films, on the dissident movement and on the life of Boris Nemtsov.

He was poisoned in May 2015 and February 2017, leaving him in a coma and on life support. The murder attempts were widely viewed as politically motivated.

Mr. Kara-Murza is being honored “for persevering against overwhelming odds, and at great personal sacrifice, in opposing the cruel dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, and for pursuing the dream of a free and democratic Russia,” said Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, a co-organizer of the conference together with Liberal International, Human Rights Foundation, and more than 20 other human rights groups.

“In the face of grave danger, Vladimir Kara-Murza has continuously stood up against a dictatorship that tramples the freedoms of its own citizens, persecutes gays, and which helped massacre hundreds of thousands of Syrians,” said Neuer.

About the Geneva Summit: Unique Gathering of Human Rights Heroes

Days before foreign ministers gather across the street to open the 2018 session of the UN Human Rights Council, Mr. Kara-Murza will join some of the world's most courageous champions of human rights at the Geneva Summit in a bid to stir the conscience of the UN to address critical human rights situations around the world.

Dissidents, activists and former political prisoners will be coming from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Turkey, Venezuela, and Vietnam, to testify on the human rights situation in their countries.

"It’s a focal point for dissidents worldwide," said Neuer. The global gathering is acclaimed as a one-stop opportunity to hear from and meet front-line human rights advocates, many of whom have personally suffered imprisonment and torture.
The list of speakers is available at www.genevasummit.org.

Admission to the summit is free and open to the public, but registration is mandatory. For accreditation, program and schedule information, visit www.genevasummit.org. The conference will also be available via live webcast.

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