Oct. 22 (UPI) — The European Parliament announced Wednesday it granted imprisoned journalists Andrzej Poczobut and Mzia Amaglobeli with its 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought as the two political prisoners sit in isolation for speaking up.
The France-based European Parliament awarded Andrzej Poczobut of Belarus and Mzia Amaglobeli from Georgia with the prize to honor “exceptional” people or organizations that defend human rights, fundamental freedoms and safeguard minority rights.
On Wednesday, EP President Roberta Metsola revealed the decision by parliament’s political group leaders in the plenary chamber.
“The courage of these journalists in speaking out against injustice, even behind bars, stands as a powerful symbol of freedom and democracy,” Metsola posted on X.
The Sakharov Prize named after Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, since 1988, honors those who fight for “respect of international law, democracy and rule of law.”
Its 2024 laureates were Venezuelan political opposition leaders, including María Corina Machado who in 2025 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Nominations must be issued by at least 40 European Parliament members or by its political groups.
Poczobut and Amaglobeli were jointly nominated by the European People’s Party group, the European Conservatives and Reformists group, Lithuanian EP member Rasa Juknevičienė and 60 other colleagues.
Prize nominations were presented on Sept. 23 at a joint meeting of the EP’s foreign affairs and development committees in addition to its human rights subcommittee.
In August, scores of international human rights and journalism advocates joined to condemn the conviction and two-year prison sentence of independent Georgian journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli.
Amaghlobeli, notably, is Georgia’s first female political prisoner since its 1991 independence from the former Russian Soviet Union.
Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and blogger from the Polish minority in Belarus, has been known for criticism of longtime Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko and his regime.
Poczobut, detained in 2021 and sentenced to eight years in a penal colony, has become a symbolic figure in the struggle for freedom and democracy in the country. His current condition is unknown and his family is denied any visits as the EP has called his his immediate and unconditional release.
The parliament granted its 2022 award to the people of Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale arbitrary invasion of its neighboring country, and in 2024 to the late Jina Mahsa Amini and Iran’s Women, Life, Freedom Movement.
Other finalists included Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, the 2025 Budapest Pride events in Hungary, and the late American conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Meanwhile, the award ceremony with its cash prize will take place December 16 in Strasbourg, France.
