At a ceremony and dinner organized by Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), in partnership with the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina on 4 November 2022 at the Hotel Alvear, Buenos Aires, the largest global organization of individual lawmakers recognized three prominent human rights and democracy defenders from the Argentinean and Ukrainian civil society and from the Russian opposition to the autocratic regime.
With a decision taken in New York on 4 June 2022, the PGA Board of 15 elected MPs from all regions of the world attributed the DDA to Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk of the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), who would have become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate four months after. CCL has been a partner of PGA since 2014, when the peaceful Euromaidan revolution was also embodied by Ms. Matviichhuk. PGA continued to worked steadily with CCL until these days, and strongly supported the CCL initiative entitled “A Tribunal for Putin” through which Ukrainian NGOs have so far documented more than 21,000 atrocities committed in the course of the war of aggression waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Ms. Rozaina Adam, MP (Maldives) delivered the award to Ms. Matviichuk on behalf of PGA.
The PGA Board also decided to unanimously attribute the DDA 2022 to leading Russian dissident and Washington Post columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza. Prisoner of conscience, Mr. Kara-Murza is the victim of persecution by the Russian authorities, who have condemned him for treason when he rightly designated the current war in Ukraine by the word “war.” The voice of Mr. Kara-Murza can be heard in the free world thanks to the relentless testimony of his wife, Evgenia, who read an emotional letter addressed to PGA that Mr. Kara Murza managed to hand-write and transmit to Buenos Aires thanks to his lawyer. The DDA award was delivered to Ms. Evgenia Kara-Murza representing her spouse by Sen. Boris Dittrich (The Netherlands).
Upon proposal of the PGA Argentina National Group, the PGA Board also decided to attribute the DDA 2022 to Dr. Luis Fondebrider for his extraordinary contribution to the search for truth, justice and reparation by the victims of the war waged by the military junta under the infamous “Plan Condor”. As founder and leader of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), Dr. Fondebrider conducted innovative and irreplaceable forensic-medicine-work that led to the identification of children disappeared and the exhumation of bodies of assassinated victims as well as many other findings of elements of evidence that were instrumental to truth-verification and justice processes in Argentina and many other countries affected by conflict, repression and mass atrocities. The award to Dr. Fondebrider was delivered by Dip. Margarita Stolbizer and Sen. Lucila Crexell of Argentina.
The DDA 2022 Ceremony and dinner concluded with a cultural programme generously offered by the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina. As part of PGA’s Democratic Renewal and Human Rights Campaign, this event was made possible by the PGA partnership with Global Affairs Canada.
The PGA Defender of Democracy Awards honor individuals who have demonstrated exceptional commitment and contribution to promoting peace, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, non-discrimination and/or gender equality. Their actions should support PGA’s vision, namely “to contribute to the creation of a rules-based international order for a more equitable, safe and democratic world.”
2022 DDA Recipients:
Dr. Luis Fondebrider (Argentina)
Founder of the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF)
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l-r: Sen.Lucilla Crexell (Argentina), Dr. Luis Fondebrider, Dip. Margarita Stolbizer (Argentina)
Dr. Luis Fondebrider is a forensic anthropologist and founder of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), a non-governmental organization that has worked since 1984 in human rights investigation, exhumation of graves and analysis of skeletal remains. During that time, the EAAF has conducted and/or participated in forensic investigations of human rights violations in 30 countries. In 2020, the EAAF was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Fondebrider also worked as an expert and forensic consultant at the International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations Commissions of Inquiry and UNITAD Iraq, as well as at Truth Commissions in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Haiti, Peru, Solomon Islands and South Africa. From 2018 to 2021, he served as President of the Latin American Association of Forensic Anthropology and was a member of the Certification Committee.
Dr. Fondebrider obtained his degree in Anthropological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires.
Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk (Ukraine)
Chairperson of the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL)
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l-r: Hon. Rozaina Adam (Maldives) and Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk (Ukraine), Chairwoman of the CCL
Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk has contributed to the improvement of the global human rights situation in Ukraine, including through expanding and reinforcing the space and voice of the Ukrainian civil society. As the Chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), Ms. Matviichuk is considered the most prominent leading civil society representative working on justice and human rights in Ukraine. Ms. Matviichuk also coordinates the Euromaidan SOS civic initiative, created after the violent crackdown of peaceful demonstrations on Independence Square on 30 November 2013. Ms. Matviichuk has led multiple international mobilization campaigns for the release of prisoners of conscience such as the #letmypeoplego campaign and the #SaveOlegSentsov global action for the release of illegally-imprisoned people in Russia and the occupied Crimea and Donbas regions. She is the author of a number of reports to various UN bodies, Council of Europe, European Union, OSCE and several submissions on alleged crimes committed in Ukraine to the ICC.
Following the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, she has courageously remained vocal and continues to actively defend and advocate for international justice, democracy and the rule of law. Through the CCL, Euromaidan SOS and her social media, she daily reports on the human rights violations committed on the ground, therefore providing crucial testimonies to denounce and inform globally on the ongoing atrocities.
The Center for Civil Liberties received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. Vladimir Kara-Murza
Russian opposition leader, journalist, filmmaker and human rights and democracy activist
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l-r: Ms. Evgenia Kara-Murza and Sen. Boris Dittrich (The Netherlands)
Mr. Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian dissident and democratic opposition leader, Vice-Chairman of Open Russia Foundation, Senior Adviser at the Institute for Modern Russia, journalist and former adviser to murdered Russian opposition parliamentarian Mr. Boris Nemtsov. On 22 April 2022, Russian authorities declared Mr. Kara-Murza a “foreign agent” and ordered his pre-trial detention for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian army amid its military campaign in Ukraine. He has remained in detention since. Mr. Kara-Murza played a key role in the passage of the original Magnitsky legislation, which imposed targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators. Twice, in 2015 and 2017, he was poisoned and left in a coma; the attempts on his life were widely viewed as the Russian government’s retribution for his work on the Magnitsky sanctions.
He is a contributing writer at the Washington Post. Mr. Kara-Murza hosts a weekly show on Echo of Moscow radio and has worked for the BBC, RTVi, and Kommersant. He has directed three documentary films, They Chose Freedom, Nemtsov, and My Duty to Not Stay Silent and is the author of Reform or Revolution: The Quest for Responsible Government in the First Russian State Duma. He has received several awards, including the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, the Magnitsky Human Rights Award and the Geneva Summit Courage Award.
The award was accepted by his wife Ms. Evgenia Kara-Murza.
