The ‘Radio Liberty’ Journalist Halina Abakunchyk Received a Human Rights Defenders’ Award – 2017 PHOTO REPORT

Hali­na Abakunchyk has been repeat­ed­ly pros­e­cut­ed for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ty. She has always been in the epi­cen­ter of events. In par­tic­u­lar, Ms. Abakunchyk was pros­e­cut­ed for report­ing from the ‘Non-par­a­site cit­i­zens’ Ral­ly’ in a dis­trict cen­tre of Orsha, Vit­sieb­sk region in the spring of 2017. A huge fine was imposed on the inde­pen­dent radio jour­nal­ist for her work. More­over, she was deprived of her press cre­den­tials from the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of Belarus.

An archivist his­to­ri­an and a for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Zmit­si­er Drozd hand­ed over the award to Hali­na Abakunchyk.“Solidarity is very impor­tant. Human rights defend­ers, activists, and jour­nal­ists can hard­ly work with­out it. The award can be giv­en to quite a few jour­nal­ists. All of us work in com­pli­cat­ed real­i­ties, when the law is vio­lat­ed. How­ev­er, we don’t work in vain. We are approach­ing the time, when Belarus will be a nor­mal coun­try, when the laws will be duly applied and human rights will be regard­ed as rights. It is impos­si­ble to stop time and his­to­ry. Free­dom is inside of us. This is my life cre­do”, not­ed Hali­na Abakunchyk dur­ing the solemn award­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Min­sk.

Raisa Michailouskaya from the Belaru­sian Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­tre has been announced the Human Rights Defend­er of the year.

By_Help human rights cam­paign in sup­port of oppressed cit­i­zens dur­ing the protest events in the spring of 2017 has been announced the best cam­paign of the year. Yuliya Darashke­vich received the award as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of By_Help civ­il ini­tia­tive.

It is worth men­tion­ing that all lau­re­ates of Human Rights Defend­ers’ Award are women this year. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the win­ners!

Сёлета ўсе дыпломы Праваабарончай прэміі атрымалі жанчыны. Віншуем пераможцаў!