Week-ending 24 September 2021
On 23 September 2021 Civil Rights Defenders announced that OVD-Info had won its Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award. Civil Rights Defenders stated:
The Russian human rights and media project OVD-Info is awarded the Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award 2021. OVD-Info is a lifeline for the thousands of people who suffer from political persecution in Russia. For 10 years, they have been publishing data on arrests of peaceful demonstrators and assisting them with legal aid. OVD-Info receives the prize for their courage to speak up against human rights violations in Russia – a country where the space for dissidence is shrinking at a rapid pace.
Civil Rights Defenders is an international human rights organisation based in Stockholm, Sweden, that defends people’s civil and political rights. The organisation is financed by governmental organisations, the Swedish Postcode Lottery, foundations, and through corporate partnerships, as well as contributions from the public. Civil Rights Defenders is a registered Swedish nonprofit that is religiously and politically unaffiliated.
The website of Civil Rights Defenders features a video about OVD-Info, including interviews with the organisation’s co-founders Grigory Okhotin and Daniil Beilinson, that can also be viewed below.
Rights in Russia publishes translations of OVD-Info’s weekly news bulletin that can be read here.
Source: ‘Civil Rights Defender of the Year 2021 – OVD-Info,’ Civil Rights Defenders, 23 September 2021
