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Jailed Journalists Win EU’s Top Human Rights Award
by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
BRUSSELS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The European Union’s legislature has awarded its top human rights honor, the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, to two imprisoned journalists — Andrzej Poczobut of Belarus and Mzia Amaghlobeli of Georgia — for what it called their “courage in defending press freedom under authoritarian pressure.”
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the pair were “journalists currently in prison on trumped-up charges simply for doing their work and for speaking out against injustice.” Their courage, she added, “has made them symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy.”
Poczobut, a correspondent for Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper and member of Belarus’s Polish minority, was arrested in 2021 for reporting on the mass protests that followed the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.
In 2023 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for allegedly “damaging national security.”
Rights groups say he has been denied medical care and held in solitary confinement, making him one of dozens of journalists imprisoned amid a wider crackdown on dissent in Belarus.
Amaghlobeli, founder of Georgia’s independent outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, was sentenced in August 2025 to two years in prison after allegedly assaulting a police officer during a protest — a case human rights organizations condemned as politically motivated. Before her sentencing, she told supporters: “You must never lose faith. The fight continues — until victory.”
SYMBOL OF PRESS FREEDOM
The Sakharov Prize, worth 50,000 euros is awarded annually by the European Parliament to individuals or organizations who defend human rights and freedom of expression.
Past laureates include Nelson Mandela, the Venezuelan opposition, and Ukraine’s people.
Analysts said this year’s decision signals the EU’s determination to highlight worsening repression in Eastern Europe, including Belarus’s mass detentions and Georgia’s growing restrictions on media and civil society.
European diplomats suggested that these nations cannot seek closer ties with the EU “while silencing journalists.”
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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