Freedom House
Jailed Belarusian opposition figure Maryya Kalesnikava has won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded annually by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to honor “outstanding” civil society action in the defense of human rights amid an ongoing crackdown in Belarus on pro-democracy activists and groups by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, RFERL reports.
Kalesnikava’s detention was extended earlier this year, said former NED president Carl Gershman, adding that there are some 300 political prisoners in Belarus, where cases of torture and inhuman treatment in state custody abound.
