This year’s winners of the Sakharov Prize have been announced

Leader of the Crimean Tatar people and member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Mustafa Dzhemilev stayed in the top three candidates for the Sakharov Prize till the last day, and he won the most votes in the secret ballots held by the European body’s committees for foreign affairs and development. However, the leadership of the European Parliament and the leaders of its political groups awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize to Lamiya Aji Bashar and Nadia Murad Basee Taha. The award ceremony will take place in Strasbourg on December 14.

The two women were captured by the IS in 2014 when their native village of Kocho (Iraq) was overrun by the militants. Both have managed to escape. They now live in Germany and advocate for the rights of the thousands of Yazidi women who are still held in sexual slavery by the IS.

Over the years, the prize was awarded to Nelson Mandela, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the Memorial human rights society of Russia.