On 1 May 2025 the Human Rights Foundation announced the recipients of the 2025 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent: Cuban artist and pro-democracy activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Syrian activist and artist Azza Abo Rebieh, and Russian artist, poet, and musician Sasha Skochilenko.
He gained international attention for his performance art and peaceful protests, including hunger strikes and symbolic acts of resistance. He was arrested during Cuba’s historic 2021 protests and sentenced to five years in prison following a closed trial. In 2022, following a submission by HRF, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment to be arbitrary and urged the Cuban regime to release him immediately. He is being held in Guanajay maximum-security prison.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, “Los Heroes no Pesan.” Courtesy of the artist.
AZZA ABO REBIEH
Azza Abo Rebieh is a Syrian artist born in Hama in 1980. During the Syrian revolution, she created graffiti, led workshops with women, and organized puppet theater for children in rural villages. In 2015, she was detained by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Art became her solace during her imprisonment in Adra prison, where she shared a cell with 30 women, many of whom were illiterate. Azza drew her cellmates, dignifying them through reminders and glimpses of themselves through sketches. Following her release, her prison drawings were exhibited at the Drawing Center in New York. Her work explores memory, resistance, and survival and is held in collections including the British Museum and Institut du Monde Arabe.
Azza Abo Rebieh, “Hindmosts.” Courtesy of the artist.
SASHA SKOCHILENKO
Sasha Skochilenko is a Russian artist, musician, poet, and former political prisoner. She was arrested in 2022 for distributing anti-war messages and sentenced in 2023 to seven years in prison under Russia’s so-called “fake news” law.
Skochilenko was released in 2024 as part of the Ankara prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia. She lives in Germany, where she continues her artistic work, participating in exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, and London to showcase the drawings she created in prison. Beyond activism, she’s the author of “Book About Depression,” which played a significant role in destigmatizing mental health issues in Russia.
Sasha Skochilenko replaced pricing labels with anti-war messages (seen here in English translation).
The Human Rights Foundation announced as recipients of the 2023 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent: Nicaraguan political cartoonist Pedro X. Molina; Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija; and the third prize to be shared by four Ukrainian artists: the late conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko; the “Art Residency in Occupation” project; the illustrator Mariia Loniuk; and the “Stand Up for Ukraine” performance project.
“In the face of oppression and stifling silence, this year’s laureates have chosen to speak the unspoken, echoing Václav Havel’s creativity and courageous spirit,” said HRF Chief Executive Officer Thor Halvorssen.
This year’s laureates will be recognized during a ceremony on Wednesday, June 14, at the 2023 Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) in Oslo, Norway. The Havel Prize ceremony will also be broadcast live at oslofreedomforum.com.
Pedro X Molina is a Nicaraguan political cartoonist who was forced into exile on Christmas Day 2018 after Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega’s political police killed a journalist, jailed two others, and ransacked the offices of El Confidencial — the digital newspaper that featured Molina’s biting caricatures of Ortega and his tyranny. Molina published his first two cartoons in Barricada in 1995, later becoming a cartoonist for the digital outlet El Confidencial. In 2019, he received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, awarded by Columbia University. The same year he was recognized by Americas Quarterly as one of its Top 5 Latin American political humorists.
Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is a prominent Ugandan novelist recognized by English PEN in 2021 as a Writer of Courage and a fierce critic of the dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni. He has shown exceptional courage and defiance despite being imprisoned and tortured three times since 2020 for his irreverent writing and books, including “The Greedy Barbarian,” a satirical political fiction novel about corruption and dictatorship in a fictitious African country, and “Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous,” an account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention in 2020 for the publication of his first book. In late December 2021, Rukirabashaija was kidnapped from his home and taken to an army base, where he was illegally detained for one month because of his tweets criticizing Museveni and his son. Rukirabashaija was so severely tortured that he was released only on medical grounds. He was charged with “offensive communication” under Uganda’s repressive Computer Misuse Act. In February 2022, Rukirabashaija managed to flee to Germany for medical treatment, and he vowed to return to Uganda to face trial after his medical treatment.
Kerpatenko was a renowned Ukrainian musician and principal conductor of the Kherson Regional Philharmonic. In October 2022, Russian troops assassinated Kerpatenko in his home at point-blank range after he refused to conduct a concert under the rule of Russian invading forces in Kherson, Ukraine. The concert was meant to portray an “improvement of peaceful life” in the occupied city, but Kerpatenko “categorically refused to cooperate with the occupants,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy later confirmed. Kerpatenko led his hometown’s orchestra for more than 20 years before he was murdered. The Havel Prize will be presented posthumously to Kerpatenko for his courageous stance against the Russian forces’ repeated attempts at “artwashing” their illegal occupation of Ukraine.
Art Residency in Occupation is an underground art society created by curator Yuliia Manukian. During the occupation of Kherson, Ukraine, six resident artists secretly met in a basement studio at the initiative of Manukian to produce works that showcase the death and destruction in the southern city of Kherson, offering viewers an opportunity to understand the scope of the war. Through this residency, Manukian sought to provide shelter for artists and gave them the opportunity to tell stories of war through the language of art. While written journalism can distance an outsider from the reality of current life in Ukraine, Manukian believes that the group’s collection of drawings, paintings, photographs, diary entries, and videos convey the raw truth.
The Havel Prize will be presented to Manukian on behalf of the collective of artists who bravely united in wartime to create dozens of works that creatively document the horrors endured by millions of Ukrainians living under the Russian invasion.
Manukian is a curator, art critic, and journalist based in Odessa, Ukraine. She was shortlisted in the British Journalism Awards’ foreign affairs category for her vital, courageous, and deeply moving Kherson diaries for The Observer.
Mariia Loniuk is a Ukrainian freelance artist specializing in digital art. Since Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Loniuk has created vivid and touching illustrations about the war, conveying the feelings and images Ukrainians face. Her drawings capture the devastation of cities, homes, and human lives, the ubiquity of death and suffering, and the war’s destruction. Despite this, her illustrations also highlight the tremendous bravery and determination of the Ukrainian army and the courage and solidarity of the Ukrainian people as they defend their freedom.
Stand Up for Ukraine is a project that brings people together through the universal language of music, reminding us that art has the ability to transcend boundaries, challenge oppressive ideologies, and ignite a collective spirit of solidarity. The performance project, curated by Neringa Rekašiūtė, Eglė Plytnikaitė, and Elvina Nevardauskaitė, seeks to spark hope and empowerment and encourage people to stand united against a totalitarian regime that undermines human dignity. It consists of a live performance where the 22-year-old Ukrainian singer, Elizaveta Izmalkova, is joined by passersby singing along to the folk song, “Chervona Kalyna” — a symbol of Ukrainian resilience and freedom. Stand Up For Ukraine took the internet by storm, capturing the attention of more than five million viewers worldwide. The project serves as a call to action, urging people to set aside differences and come together in support of Ukraine.
Izmalkova is a 22-year-old Ukrainian singer based in Vilnius, Lithuania. She was born in the city of Pervomaisk in the Luhansk region. In her lifetime, Izmalkova’s family home in Ukraine was destroyed twice by Russian forces, first when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and once again in early 2023.
From June 13-15, 2023 the 15th edition of the Oslo Freedom Forum will take place at the Oslo Konserthus in Oslo, Norway. You can learn about the struggle for freedom directly from dissidents and human rights defenders on the frontlines. The theme of this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is: Celebrating Solidarity. This theme honors the unity, mentorship, and community that HRF and our global community — from frontline dissidents to journalists, philanthropists, and technologists — have fostered in the last 15 years. It recognizes that only together can we defeat tyranny.
Meet HRF Freedom Fellow Volya Vysotskaia, a Belarusian human rights activist who exposes repression and torture by state officials.
Vysotskaia is currently part of the 2022 Freedom Fellowship, a programme of the Human Rights Foundation, a one-year program that provides hands-on, expert mentorship across seven critical areas: leadership, movement-building, organizing, fundraising, media, mental health, and digital security.
On September 27, the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus announced that five people would be tried in absentia — Vysotskaia is one of them. She has since been denied information about the trial, and her request to appear virtually was rejected. Should she return to Belarus, a country where torture and inhuman treatment is routine, officials will likely detain her.
Learn more about Vysotskaia’s case.
Q: Can you tell us about your activism protecting democracy in Belarus?
A: From August 2020 to October 2021, I was an editor of the Telegram channel, the “Black Book of Belarus.” Our work “de-anonymized” or identified law enforcement officers and other government authorities who committed human rights violations, hiding behind their high-power statuses. We published the pictures and personal data of riot police officers, prosecutors, judges, and other officials to hold them accountable for their repression of Belarusian citizens demanding democracy and freedom.
Q: What led to the criminalization of the Black Book of Belarus’ editors and readers?
A: In October 2020, a special service agent infiltrated our team and leaked information about members. Previously, he was part of the special operation that hijacked a Ryanair flight in May 2021 to imprison Sofia Sapega, another team member. After we uncovered the agent, my team and I were chased down in Vilnius, and dozens of people in the Telegram group were also imprisoned.
Q: What is unique about your criminal case?
A: The case brought against my four colleagues and me is the first trial in absentia in the country’s history. We have been accused of “exasperation of enmity” and “social disagreement,” as well as illegal actions relating to private life and personal data. The Belarusian KGB has also added us to the list of individuals engaging in “extremist activities.” Belarusian courts recognize almost all civil society organizations as extremists, but we will be the first to be tried and sentenced without the opportunity to defend ourselves.
Belarusian authorities are undoubtedly denying us the right to a fair trial. Notably, I was denied access to information about my criminal case, and I never met the lawyer assigned to me, nor did the lawyer ever respond to my calls.
Q: What is the scope of legal harassment against Belarusian pro-democracy activists in exile?
A: The Lukashenko government changed the criminal procedural law back in July and invented a special proceeding for trying in absentia those who are engaged in “anti-state activities,” and living in exile. The addendum of this new procedural law provides that defendants are no longer aware of the content of their cases. It is sufficient for the legislative body to post this information on official websites, which clearly violates Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Q: What should the international community learn from your case?
A: The violations of the right to a fair trial, among other rights, didn’t start in Belarus with our case. It just brings back the attention of the international community to the fact that the repressions in Belarus haven’t stopped. They continue every day. The power, the judicial system, and the independence of Belarus with Lukashenko are fake. The regime represses and scares the Belarusians inside the country, and while the international community doesn’t react to the severe violations of human rights, the regime spreads its attention to those living in exile. Because silence allows them to do that.
The international community has to learn that there have to be efficient mechanisms for bringing perpetrators to trial until they destroy whole nations, as well as to guarantee the defense for the victims of violations. International justice can’t be built on the international ignorance of injustice. Being concerned doesn’t stop dictators.Repression in Belarus. HRF condemns the actions of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and stands with Volya and all Belarusians who speak truth to power, even when their lives are at risk
The Freedom Fellowship is a one-year program that gives human rights advocates, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders from challenging political environments the opportunity to increase the impact of their work. Through mentorship and hands-on training sessions, fellows develop critical skills and join a growing community of human rights activists.
THE STORY WON’T DIE is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since World War II. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winning producer Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other celebrated creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, including post-rock musician Anas Maghrebi, members of the first all female Syrian rock band Bahila Hijazi and Lynn Mayya, breakdancer Bboy Shadow, choreographer Medhat Aldaabal, and visual artists Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam and Diala Brisly, use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice, and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world, and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.
The Human Rights Foundation organised the New York Premiere of THE STORY WON’T DIE on Friday, June 17 at Cinema Village. The screening was followed by a Q&A with award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson and the film’s co-producer Abdalaziz Alhamza.
NOGs (such as Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Foundation) have condemned the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen, as well as the lawyer Joseph Zen, the singer Denise Ho and the scholar Hui Po-Keung, for having maintained contacts with foreign forces in Hong Kong.
HRW Senior China researcher Maya Wang, said that “the arrest of a 90-year-old cardinal is the latest example of the city’s human rights freefall in recent years.”
The four, along with former lawmaker Cyd Ho, who is already in jail, were part of the 612 Humanitarian Aid Fund, which provided medical, legal and psychological help to protesters arrested during the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Kong.
Denise Ho, Margaret Ng, and others affiliated with Stand News, an independent pro-democracy online publication, were previously arrested by national security police in December 2021 under allegations of publishing “seditious” and “inflammatory” materials. Denise Ho formerly served on the board of Stand News, but stepped down in November 2021. Meanwhile, the 612 Humanitarian Support Fund ceased operations in October 2021 after national security police and Chinese state-backed media requested information on its beneficiaries and donors.
Maya Wang has specified that Hong Kong has “long been a regional leader in openness and respect for the rule of law, but now competes for the first places in Asia for repression and political prisoners.”
“The people of Hong Kong have been unequivocal in their demand for human rights, and governments around the world should be unequivocal in their response to that call,” concluded the HRW researcher.
The 2022 laureates are: professional basketball player and human rights advocate Enes Kanter Freedom, Iranian artist project PaykanArtCar, and Ukrainian-born Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova. This year’s laureates will receive their awards on Wednesday, May 25, during the 2022 Oslo Freedom Forum.
Enes Kanter Freedom is a professional basketball player and vocal advocate for human rights. Since the start of the 2021 NBA season, he has used his global platform to consistently raise awareness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s human rights abuses. Using his basketball shoes as the canvas for his messages, he wore multiple artistic designs highlighting issues such as the Uyghur genocide, the occupation of Tibet, slave labor at the Nike shoe factories, and the intolerance of China’s dictator. As a result of his creative dissent, he is now banned from China and was dropped by both the Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets, despite being only 29 years old and in the prime of his career. Freedom’s perseverance has captured the attention of international media and informed millions of sports fans about the global struggle for individual rights in places like Tibet and the Uyghur region. At a time when professional athletes display incessant hypocrisy, unlimited greed, and double standards, Freedom emerges as the moral conscience of professional basketball. Freedom first came to international attention as an outspoken critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, making him a target of Turkey’s government — he was deemed a “terrorist” by the regime, stripped of his passport, and was publicly disowned by his family. In late 2021, he changed his name and added “Freedom” as his official last name. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/525e5018-7f56-4009-85b8-3f3cce9a8810
The PaykanArtCar unites the talents of contemporary Iranian artists in the diaspora with a beloved symbol of Iranian national pride — the Paykan automobile — to advocate for human rights in Iran. The car used was once gifted by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran to the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and was purchased at an auction to serve as the canvas for artwork by Iranian artists in exile. Each year, PaykanArtCar commissions an exceptional Iranian artist-in-exile to use the car to capture the Iranian struggle for human dignity and basic freedoms. The inaugural PaykanArtCar was designed by Alireza Shojaian and features a historic Persian design with a provocative message about the brutality and ruthlessness faced by the marginalized and oppressed LGBTQ+ community inside Iran. The PaykanArtCar represents brave, creative dissent against the human rights abuses of Iran’s theocratic dictatorial regime. The PaykanArtCar will travel to Norway to be present at the Oslo Freedom Forum as part of Human Rights Foundation’s Art in Protest exhibit and will be parked at the event venue. The second edition of PaykanArtCar will be painted by a female Iranian artist and will advocate for women’s rights in Iran.
Marina Ovsyannikova is a Ukrainian-born Russian journalist and activist, who staged a live protest against the war in Ukraine during a news broadcast of Russian state TV. Ovsyannikova was a longtime editor at Russia’s Channel One, where her job was to assist those engaged in disinformation to be distributed to the Russian people. After thinking through ways in which she could protest, she chose to interrupt a live broadcast, holding a sign calling for “no war.” Following her demonstration on live TV and a subsequent anti-war video, Ovsyannikova was held overnight in a police station, denied access to a lawyer, and ultimately fined 30,000 roubles — she disappeared without contact for more than 12 hours. The Kremlin denounced her protest as “hooliganism,” and Ovsyannikova faces up to 15 years in prison under Russia’s disinformation laws. In a recent article, she expressed profound regret for her years as a participant in “the Russian propaganda machine” where her job was to create “aggressive Kremlin propaganda – propaganda that constantly sought to deflect attention from the truth, and to blur all moral standards,” she says: “I cannot undo what I have done. I can only do everything I possibly can to help destroy this machine and end this war.”
Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian democracy activist, historian, twice-poisoned critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime, and a senior advisor to Human Rights First, was reportedly arrested near his Moscow residence on 11 April 2022. Kara-Murza’s arrest came just days after his return to Russia and shortly after CNN broadcasted an interview with him. He is the winner of 3 human rights awards, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/34e43b60-3236-11ea-b4d5-37ffeeddd006
“We are deeply concerned for our friend Vladimir Kara-Murza’s personal safety, and we call on Russian authorities to release him immediately,” said Michael Breen, President and CEO of Human Rights First. “Putin and his regime have shown themselves to be willing to break any law, domestic or international, to suppress political opposition at home and subjugate neighboring countries like Ukraine. We call on all of democracy’s allies to oppose criminal behavior like this to protect human rights in Russia, Ukraine, and around the world.”
Having been targeted for assassination twice before, Kara-Murza knew his return to Russia put him in danger. In his recent CNN interview, Kara-Murza said, “The biggest gift we could give…to the Kremlin would be just to give up and run…that’s all they want from us.”
On December 5, 2021, Canadian pop star Justin Bieber is scheduled to perform at the Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021, a state-sponsored music festival funded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has contacted Mr. Bieber and his team, urging him to cancel his performance and refuse the Kingdom’s efforts to whitewash its appalling human rights record. Instead, HRF has asked him to use his global influence to issue a statement in support of human rights in Saudi Arabia, just as his colleague Nicki Minaj did when she cancelled her 2019 performance in Saudi Arabia, following a letter from HRF.
“It would be disastrous for Justin Bieber, an artist with a vast global following, and who is idolized by millions, to be used as a pawn by MBS’ murderous regime,” said HRF President Céline Assaf-Boustani. “Instead of giving into MBS’ plot to launder his image, as other artists have done since MBS’ ascent to power, Mr. Bieber should follow the lead of his fellow artist Nicki Minaj, who boldly shut down MBS and refused to perform for him.”
Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. It is an absolute monarchy whose de facto dictator, MBS, brutally silences anyone who dares to criticize his policies or calls for reform. Since the beginning of his rule in 2017, MBS has spearheaded a brutal crackdown on dissidents, many of whom have been harassed, arbitrarily detained, sentenced, and tortured to death. Among the groups that his crackdown has targeted are women, who are treated like second-class citizens, the LGBTQ+ community, and other minority groups.
Should he follow through with the performance, Mr. Bieber, who has shown support for the LGBTQ+ community throughout his career, will be profiting off a regime that executes LGBTQ+ individuals for the “crime” of being who they are. In April 2019, for example, five gay men were beheaded after they confessed to crimes under torture. Mr. Bieber has also supported the Black Lives Matter movement and the advancement of civil rights and social justice in the United States, indicating that he wants to use his artistic gifts to “serve this planet and each other,” and to help those who feel helpless in the face of “suffering, injustice, and pain.”
“As someone who has articulated a commitment to civil rights and social justice, Mr. Bieber should stay true to his words and use his platform to raise awareness about the atrocities being perpetrated every day in Saudi Arabia, especially against members of the LGBTQ+ community,” added Assaf-Boustani. “This performance would stand in stark contrast to the core values he claims to subscribe to. Music is not just a business, but also an influential art form that should not be purchased by a brutal dictatorship.”
On 13 January 2021) the Human Rights Foundation announced the opening of “In Pursuit of Freedom,” a digital art exhibit featuring 15 protest movements from around the globe. Street protests were a defining feature of recent civil and political resistance despite the spread of the novel coronavirus worldwide. Authoritarian regimes were exposed for using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for repression, stricter restrictions, and power grabs instead of protecting their citizens’ lives. Nevertheless, people took the streets to make their voices heard, and as they adapted to champion social and political change in the face of the outbreak, art was a vigorous medium of protest and creative expression to expose the deception of tyranny. “In Pursuit of Freedom: A Year in Global Protest Art” showcases moving examples of protest art from 15 countries across regions, and attests to how art can be a powerful tool for activism and protest. From Belarus to Hong Kong, visit the exhibit to see striking works of protest art by artists who committed their talent in 2020 to push for change across 15 countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 