The European Parliament has awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to journalists Andrzej Poczobut and Mzia Amaghlobeli, who are currently imprisoned in Belarus and Georgia.
Andrzej Poczobut is a journalist and activist of the Union of Poles in Belarus, an organization not recognized by the authorities.
“Known for his outspoken criticism of the Lukashenko regime and his work on history and human rights, he has repeatedly faced arrests,” the European Parliament said in its statement.
Poczobut has been imprisoned since 2021. In February 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in a high-security colonyon charges of inciting hatred and calling for actions allegedly aimed at harming national security.
Among the episodes cited in the case were his “discussions of Soviet aggression against Poland,” an article in Gazeta Wyborcza about the crackdown on the 2020 protests, and a 2006 publication about a commander of the Polish anti-communist resistance in the Grodno region.
Mzia Amaghlobeli is a Georgian journalist and founder of the media outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi.
She was detained in Tbilisi in January 2025 on charges of assaulting a police officer during a protest. According to investigators, the journalist slapped Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze.
Amaghlobeli did not deny slapping the officer, stating that he insulted her and spat in her face. In August, a court sentenced her to two years in prison.
“The first female political prisoner in Georgia since the country’s independence and a defender of freedom of expression, Amaghlobeli has become a symbolic leader of Georgia’s democratic protest movement against the ruling Georgian Dream party following the disputed elections of October 2024,”
the European Parliament said in its statement.
