Alexei Navalny is the winner of the European Parliament’s 2021 Sakharov Prize. President David Sassoli himself announced it, explaining that “he has campaigned consistently against the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime” and this “has cost him his freedom and nearly his life”. Sassoli added that today’s award honours his “great courage” and reiterated Europe’s call “for his immediate release”. Navalny has been in prison for 275 days. The activist was selected from a shortlist of three candidates, including eleven NGOs that support the rights of Afghan women and Jeanine Anez, former president of Bolivia, who is also behind bars awaiting trial, a victim of President Luis Arce’s tough repression. Anez herself addressed a letter to the other finalists, where she expressed “solidarity and admiration” to the Afghan women “for their resistance to sexist and criminal discrimination” and to Navalny “for returning home even knowing he would be arrested”. The Sakharov Prize will be awarded during the plenary session of the European Parliament in December.