European Parliament awards Sakharov Prize to Sentsov:
By RFE/RL
The European Parliament has awarded imprisoned Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov its 2018 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Sentsov's cousin Natalya Kaplan and his lawyer, Dmitry Dinze, accepted the prize in the filmmaker's name at a ceremony in Strasbourg on December 12.
Sentsov has been imprisoned in Russia since opposing Moscow's takeover of his native Crimea in 2014.
European officials have called on Russian authorities to release the film director, saying he continues to be in poor health as he recovers from 145-day hunger strike in prison.
A Crimean native who opposed Russia's 2014 takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of terrorism.
He is currently imprisoned in Russia's Far North.
Human rights groups and Western governments criticized the trial as politically motivated.
The 50,000-euro ($57,000) prize, named in honor of Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov, was established by the European Parliament in 1988 to honor individuals and organizations who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Sakharov was a founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a Soviet-era rights group, along with Lyudmila Alekseyeva, who died on December 8.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
