EU prize honors Russia rights organization

BRUSSELS, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The civil rights society Memorial, based in Moscow, claimed the European Union's 2009 Sakharov prize for freedom of thought Thursday.

Announcing the decision, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said, "We hope to contribute to ending the circle of fear and violence surrounding human rights defenders in the Russian Federation," the EUobserver reported.

Three Memorial staff members -- Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva -- will be invited to receive the prize, which comes with a nearly $75,000 award, in December. Posters and artwork depicting Memorial and its work will be installed at the EU campus in Brussels, officials said.

Memorial was founded in the 1980s by the Russian dissident writer Andrei Sakharov as a way to document Stalinist-era crimes in Russia. Since then, it has expanded to a broader human rights movement in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldova and Ukraine.

One of the non-government organization's board members, Natalya Estemirova, who worked in Chechnya, was dragged screaming into a car and then found dead with bullet wounds to the chest and head earlier this year. Three other Russian human rights proponents also were killed in 2009. No one has been charged in any of the deaths.