Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), human rights activist, dissident, nuclear physicist and Nobel prize laurate, died on 14 December 1989. Famous as a key designer of the Soviet Union’s thermonuclear bomb, Sakharov subsequently became the leading advocate for human rights in the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1975. 0n 22 January 1980, after public protests against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, Sakharov was arrested ans sent into exile in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, a city then out of bounds to foreigners. He recalled from exile in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev. The Sakharov Prize, awarded each year by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms, is named in his honour
See: ‘Andrei Sakharov’, Wikipedia
