Watchdog

The Russian feminist protest group Pussy Riot and Belarusian human rights activist Ales Byalyatski are among the European Parliament's five nominees for this year's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

The nomination list, posted Thursday on the European Parliament website, singles out Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, all facing two-year jail sentences, for what it calls their "courageous, spectacular, and creative" antigovernment protest in a Moscow church.

Also nominated was Byalyatski, the jailed chairman of the Vyasna human rights center, which has actively reported on Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's ongoing crackdown on dissent.

A decision on the finalist will be made in late October, followed by an award ceremony in December.

Past winners include activists slain during last year's Arab Spring protests and Russia's Memorial rights group.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service

BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament has passed a resolution deploring the pardoning of an Azerbaijani officer who killed an Armenian serviceman in Hungary eight years ago.

The resolution says the decision to release Ramil Safarov is "a gesture which could contribute to further escalation of the tensions" between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

EU lawmakers also said they considered the presidential pardon given to Safarov after his return from Hungary, where he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, as "a violation of the diplomatic assurances given to the Hungarian authorities."

The European Parliament says that an agreement that would deepen the relationship between Baku and Brussels, currently being negotiated, should "include clauses and benchmarks relating to the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law."