BAJ Joins MEPs Letter Asking to Demand Immediate Release of Four Sakharov Prize Laureates

The let­ter to Fed­er­i­ca Mogheri­ni (High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Euro­pean Union for For­eign Affairs and Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy), Jean Claude Junck­er (Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion) and Don­ald Tusk (Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil) ini­ti­at­ed by MEP and Sakharov Prize lau­re­ate Maite Pagaza­u­r­tun­d­ua, has been signed by  over fifty MEPs from dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal groups and many Sakharov Prize lau­re­ates.

Euro­pean lead­ers are asked to demand from Rus­sia, Venezuela, Sau­di Ara­bia and Iran the imme­di­ate lib­er­a­tion the Ukrain­ian film direc­tor Oleg Sentsov, oppo­si­tion leader Leopol­do Lopez, blog­ger Raif Badawi and lawyer Nas­rin Sotude.

They were award­ed for defend­ing free­dom and we must now demand theirs. The Euro­pean Union must be strict­when demand­ing the release for these four impris­oned lau­re­ates. Free­dom is a key EU val­ue and free­dom is whatthey fight for and were recog­nised for with the Sakharov Prize.  We have to act so they are free with­out more delay…»

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists is one of the first to have joined the let­ter to the EU lead­ers.