Strasbourg, 21/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - Sir Graham Watson, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE), announced that he would be nominating Boris Nemtsov for the Vaclav Havel Award for Human Rights. This approach is highly significant with regard to Russia (interview by Véronique Leblanc).
Agence Europe: your group, ALDE, has put forward Boris Nemtsov as a candidate for the Vaclav Havel Award at the Council of Europe? This Russian dissident was assassinated in February, near the Kremlin. What is the significance of your approach, given that the prizes have never been awarded posthumously?
Graham Watson - We don't know who ordered the murder of Boris Nemtsov but we do know that the system put in place by Vladimir Putin led to it. Russia has become a monster and Nemtsov could become a symbol in the fight for freedom, just as Malala Yousafzai became a symbol in the fight against fundamentalist Islam when our group proposed her for the Sakharov prize at the European Parliament. ALDE will also be nominating Boris Nemtsov as a candidate for the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights.
It subsequently proved possible to reach a consensus against radical Islam but this will be more difficult when it involves Russia and the geopolitical stakes at play …
That's true and we know that it will be difficult to get this nomination through but it is possible for it to gain support beyond our group. Putin can now be seen as an anti-democratic fundamentalist.
Are the sanctions voted for against Russia by the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly justified in your opinion?
Certainly. As opposed to what happened in Georgia in 2008 when Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country, France, held the Presidency of the European Union, there have not been any firm voices against Russian interference in Ukraine. Angela Merkel did not want any conflict with Moscow, because of the gas we depend on from Russia. The CoE, the “greater Europe of 47” countries held firm and this is a positive thing.
In the long term, however, Russia is threatening to leave the CoE… Are you worried about this in respect of the citizens of this country?
They feel they have very little protection from our institution faced with the authoritarianism of the system…
But they still have the European Court of Human Rights…
Whose rulings Moscow is refusing to respect…
You therefore no longer have any hope in the Europe/Russia dialogue?
Russia is a block on European thought in certain forums and this is astonishing because it is a European country, at least to the Urals and even Vladivostok. It has to be admitted, however, that it appears to want to oppose values of tolerance and confidence in the future - the very values of the CoE. I have the impression that the Russians have become prisoners of a government that is not totalitarian but authoritarian. The nomination of Boris Nemtsov for the Vaclav Havel Award is completely understandable in this context.
The call for nominations for the “2015 Vaclav Havel Award for Human Rights” will close on 30 April. The first meeting of the jury of six experts will take place in Prague on 25 August and this will put forward a short list of the three finalists, before selecting the prize-winner on 27 September. The award will be made the following day at the CoE building in Strasbourg during the autumn plenary session of the PACE. There is nothing in the rules that prevents posthumous nominations, according to the secretariat responsible for the award. In 2014, the Vaclav Havel Award was awarded to the dissident Anar Mammadli, who has been imprisoned in Azerbaijan.