Council of Europe awards Venezuelan leader María Corina Machado

By Vatican News

The Council of Europe in Strasbourg has awarded Venezuelan opposition leader and human rights advocate María Corina Machado with the ‘Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.’

The prize was presented on 30 September at the opening of the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European international organisation that protects human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Leading opposition figure in Venezuela

Ms. Machado is the co-founder and former leader of the Venezuelan group Súmate (focused on election monitoring and citizens' rights). She served as a member of Venezuela's National Assembly from 2011 to 2014, and is currently the national coordinator of the political movement Vente Venezuela.

She was disqualified from running in the South American nation’s presidential elections on July 28th.

The Havel Prize

The Havel Prize is awarded annually by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, in partnership with the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation, "to recognize outstanding civil society efforts in defense of human rights in Europe and elsewhere." The award includes a sum of 60,000 euros, a trophy, and a diploma, which was handed to Machado's daughter, Ana.

Speaking from remote, Ms. Machado said she was "deeply moved, honoured, and grateful" to be the first Latin American to win the prestigious award, declaring on "X" (formerly Twitter) that it is "an award for thirty million Venezuelans."

Meanwhile, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, urged the Venezuelan government to "immediately" release lawyer Perkins Rocha, who was arrested for allegedly assisting opposition candidates during the recent presidential elections.

Rocha — legal advisor to the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Platform — was arrested by government security agents on 27 August.