The winners of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for 2025 are Andrzej Poczobut, a Polish journalist imprisoned by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus, and Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who was arrested during protests in Batumi in January 2025.
President of the European Parliament (EP) Roberta Metsola announced the winners of this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought today at noon during a plenary session in Strasbourg.
The winners were selected by the Conference of Presidents of the EP, which includes Metsola and the leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament. The prize went to Andrzej Poczobut and Mzia Amaglobeli.
“The courage of these journalists, who openly stand up against injustice, even from behind bars, is a powerful symbol of freedom and democracy,” said Metsola.
Andrzej Poczobut, an activist of the Polish minority in Belarus, was arrested in 2021 and sentenced in 2023 to eight years in a high-security penal colony for “activities harmful to the interests of the state” – among other things, for calling the 1939 attack of the USSR on Poland an act of aggression and for documenting the 2020 protests.
Poczobut was nominated for the prize by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, to which Law and Justice (PiS) belongs, as well as by the European People’s Party (EPP), which includes the Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish People’s Party (PSL).
Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who participated in protests in Georgia demanding a repeat of the elections, was detained several times in 2024 and finally arrested in January 2025 on charges of assaulting a police officer. In August 2025, she was sentenced to two years in prison.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, established in 1988, is the highest honor of the European Union in the field of human rights. It is awarded to individuals and organizations distinguished for defending freedom of speech, human rights, and democracy. Among its laureates are, among others, former South African president Nelson Mandela, who led the fight to end apartheid, the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and Russian anti-Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny.