BRUSSELS — The European Parliament, in a move certain to irk Russia, awarded its top human rights prize on Thursday to Memorial, a group which campaigns against abuses of power in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Announcing the award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Memorial's leading activists, the parliament's President Jerzy Buzek said the assembly hoped "to contribute to ending the circle of fear and violence surrounding human rights defenders in the Russian Federation."
Former President Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, has sought to curb the activities of human rights groups. Some activists critical of the government have been murdered, kidnapped or beaten.
"We hope ... to advance our message that civil society activists everywhere must be free to exercise their most basic rights of freedom of thought," Buzek said.
The prize, named after late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was granted to activists Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva on behalf of Memorial. It will be officially handed over on Dec. 16 during the parliament's session in Strasbourg.
Memorial describes itself on its website as a source of "information about the violation of human rights on the territory of the former Soviet Union."
"Memorial is the undertaking of risky observation missions to 'hot spots,'" it adds.
In July, Memorial activist Natalya Estemirova was found dead after being kidnapped in Russia's troubled republic of Chechnya.
That murder was the latest in a series of killings of journalists and human rights defenders in Russia which has drawn international condemnation and raised questions over President Dmitry Medvedev's pledges to build a freer society.
In 2007 Orlov, Memorial's current chief, was kidnapped in Russia's Ingushetia region, beaten and threatened with death.
This month, he lost a defamation lawsuit brought by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Orlov was ordered to retract his accusations that Kadyrov had been behind Estemirova's murder.
Kovalev founded the first Soviet human rights association in 1969 and was among the founders of Memorial. He has been an outspoken critic of what he called the autocratic tendencies of presidents Boris Yeltsin and Putin.
Alexeyeva, along with Sakharov, founded the Moscow Helsinki Group to monitor the Soviet Union's adherence to human rights pledges made in the Helsinki Final Act agreement in 1976.
The Sakharov prize, first awarded in 1988, was given last year to Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident jailed for subversion. China sharply criticized the decision.
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