(”End of freedom” Photo by: ABD AL-RAHMAN AL TERKIT/Flickr)

"Freedom of thought is the mother of all freedoms".

Each year around the 10th of December, date when it was signed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", the European Parliament award the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought: a recognition established to reward persons or organizations who dedicate their lives to defending human rights and individual freedoms. The award is dedicated to the scientist and Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989): famous for his contribution to the creation of the hydrogen bomb and his later work in the 70s in favor of civil rights, that led him to win the Nobel for Peace; critical against the repressive aspects of Soviet rule in 1970, he established the Committee for Civil Rights of the persecuted, and was later arrested and banished to Gorky in 1980 and subsequently reinstated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, when he returned to Moscow and was elected deputy in 1989. On 16 December this year, twenty years after his death, has been held the annual awards ceremony which saw the award of the Russian human rights NGO Memorial. To receive the award there were three Russian activists Oleg Orlov, Lyudmila Alexeyeva and former political prisoner, now head of Memorial, Sergei Kovalev, who asked Europe to do more for human rights in Russia. Speaking about the situation in his country, Kovalev underlined that "it's not that clear as it may seems to be. We have many allies in the Russian society, both in our struggle for human rights and in the struggle against Stalinism. And the power in Russia is not as uniform and compact as it may seem at first glance". He added: "EU can have a firm policy and at the same time be friendly with Russia, based on support and pressure. Unfortunately it is far better to use both instruments. The role is not to be quiet, but to repeat, remember, complain and insist that Russia must honor its commitments". Kovalev, evidently touched, also commented: "I'm sure, rewarding Memorial, Parliament had in mind first and foremost, many of our beloved friends, comrades, soul sisters. The award belongs to them. I must mention Natalya Estemirova, a member of Memorial, an ardent activist for human rights, killed in Chechnya this summer. I can not forget the lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Anastasia Baburova, murdered in Moscow; the ethnologist Nikolai Girenko, shot in St. Petersburg; Farid Babayev, killed in Dagestan, and many others. Unfortunately, this list could go on". Natalia Estemirova knew the situation in the Caucasus and she had repeatedly denounced violations of human rights; awarded for her courage, shortly before her death she had denounced arbitrary executions in Chechnya, an act that had alarmed the pro-Russian authorities. Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed with four shots to the face while she was about to publish a new investigation about abuses and tortures in Chechnya, despite an attempted poisoning and numerous threats, continued to write, commenting: "Sometimes people are charged with life the fact of saying out loud what they think". Kovalev's speech was greeted with a standing ovation by the Parliament and an embrace from the President Buzek, visibly moved. To reach the ideal model of human brotherhood as desired by Sakharov, Europe can and must surely do much more to protect these people's job, for their bravery to express an inconvenient voice, for their continous search for truth, to find out names faces of those who bear the weight of their dead.