María Corina Machado wins the Václav Havel Human Rights Award
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Václav Havel Prize from the Council of Europe this Mondaybecoming the first Latin American to obtain this award that recognizes actions in defense of human rights.
“The prize is awarded to María Corina Machado of Venezuela,” announced Theodoros Rousopoulos, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, at the beginning of its plenary session in Strasbourg, northeastern France, after describing her as a “defender” of democracy.
#BREAKING María Corina Machado wins the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize from the Council of Europe https://t.co/0BxXfgHbbp pic.twitter.com/dqGKh9QFjI
— We monitor (@monitoreamos) September 30, 2024
The 56-year-old opposition figure played a key role in Venezuela’s presidential election in July. Although the authorities proclaimed Nicolás Maduro the winner, the opposition claims that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won.
Since then, the situation of the opposition is precarious. Machado is in hiding, in the middle of a wave of arrests of members of his close circle, and González Urrutia went into exile to Spain on September 8.
“It is an enormous change and a great personal challenge,” Machado confessed in a recent interview with AFP, in reference to the secrecy that he breaks on rare occasions to participate in demonstrations in Venezuela.
«I am where I feel most useful for the fight, in Venezuela (…), accompanying Venezuelans as a struggle that continues, which is much bigger than any of us,” he stressed when asked about whether exile was considered.
In addition to the Venezuelan opposition leader, the other two finalists for the prestigious award were the Azerbaijani political activist Akif Gurbanov, detained in 2024, and the Georgian feminist Babutsa Pastaraia.
The Václav Havel Prize, created in 2013 by this institution not linked to the European Union and endowed with 60,000 euros ($66,715 at the current exchange rate), rewards exceptional actions by civil society in defense of human rights.
In 2023, the prize went to imprisoned Turkish patron Osman Kavala, who succeeded Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza. The latter was present this Monday in Strasbourg, after his release by Moscow in August in a prisoner exchange.
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