Today, the European Parliament announced the three finalists for the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, honouring individuals and organisations that have shown exceptional courage in defending human rights, freedom of expression, and democratic values. The winner will be revealed in Strasbourg next Wednesday.
This year, the shortlisted candidates are imprisoned journalists Andrzej Poczobut from Belarus and Mzia Amaglobeli from Georgia, journalists and humanitarian aid workers in Palestine and across all conflict zones, and Serbian students for their continuous nationwide protests. Each political group in the European Parliament has proposed a candidate.
Poczobut, a journalist, essayist, and blogger from the Polish minority in Belarus, was nominated by the EPP and ECR groups.
The candidacy, together with Amaglobeli’s — a Georgian journalist imprisoned in 2025 for taking part in an anti-government protest and jailed for two years on politically motivated charges — was proposed by 61 MEPs.
The S&D group made the second nomination having involved UNRWA and the Red Crescent in combination with the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate to support Palestinian journalists – including Hamza and Wael Al-Dahdouh, Plestia Alaqad, Shireen Abu Akleh, and Ain Media. The Left supported this nomination.
After the awning collapse in Novi Sad in November 2024 that killed 16 people, the liberal Renew Europe group nominated the Serbian students who started the protests across the country.
The Budapest Pride nomination, which Rep. Nigrum nominated from the Greens/EFA group; Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian author nominated by the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group; and Charlie Kirk, an American right-wing activist, nominated by the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group, did not receive enough votes to be shortlisted.
