Alexei Navalny, who for a decade challenged the Kremlin in street protests and elections, survived an assassination attempt and is now in a Russian prison, on Wednesday was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s top human rights award.
Through it all, Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, has never let up in his advocacy for peaceful political change in his country’s faltering democracy. He was awarded the prize while serving a more than two-year sentence in a Russian penal colony.
The prize was as much a recognition of Navalny’s decadelong role leading the Russian political opposition as a stinging rebuke of President Vladimir Putin, whom Navalny has accused of subverting his country’s post-Soviet democracy to remain in power. Navalny has also accused Putin of ordering his assassination.
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