Charlemagne Prize: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya among three winners from Belarus
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Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was one of three winners of the 2022 Charlemagne Prize announced on Friday.
The chairman of the Charlemagne Prize Directorate, Jürgen Linden, said the panel wanted to recognize the “courageous commitment to freedom, to democracy, to the preservation of human rights and thus to European values” of Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo, along with Tsikhanouskaya.
The laureates formed a “unique role model” against dictatorship, oppression and an unjust state, Linden said.
The recipients received the award “with great pleasure,” the former mayor of Aachen added.
The trio will receive the honors in an award ceremony on May 26, 2022, at Aachen City Hall.
The prize, which was first awarded in 1950, is to recognize special services to European unification. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis was the most recent winner for his pro-European stance.
Former German chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Angela Merkel, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron and Pope Francis, are among previous award winners.
Photo – (FILE) – Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (C), Veronika Tsepkalo (L), wife and representative of non-registered presidential candidate Valery Tsepkalo, and Maria Kolesnikova (R), a representative of non-registered presidential candidate Victor Babariko, gesture during a press-conference in Minsk, Belarus, 17 July 2020 (reissued 17 December 2021). Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo were announced recipients of the 2022 International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen by the prize’s committee on 17 December 2021. EPA-EFE/TATYANA ZENKOVICH
