The winners are honored for their struggle against Venezuela's leadership in connection with this year's presidential election, where the victory for incumbent Nicolás Maduro has been strongly questioned.
Edmundo and Maria have continued to fight for a free and fair transfer of power. This parliament stands together with the Venezuelan people, says EU Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola.
The Venezuelan duo was a strong favorite since they were nominated by the conservative party groups EPP and ECR and had also received advance support from the far-right group PFE. The other finalists for the prize were the Israeli women's group Nashim Osot Shalom (Women wage peace) and the Palestinian Nisaa al-Shams (Women of the Sun), as well as the Azerbaijani human rights activist Gubad Ibadoglu.
The situation in Venezuela was also highlighted in 2017 when the Sakharov Prize was awarded to the entire "democratic opposition" in the country. Last year, the protest movement in Iran and the deceased student Mahsa Zhina Amini were honored.
The Sakharov Prize is named after the Soviet nuclear physicist, peace activist, and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov (1921-89) and has been awarded since 1988.
The European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been awarded since 1988 and has several times gone to individuals who have also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Here are the winners of the last ten years:
2024: Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia
2023: deceased Iranian student Mahsa Zhina Amini and the protest movement Woman, Life, Freedom
2022: the people of Ukraine
2021: Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny
2020: the democratic opposition in Belarus
2019: Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti
2018: Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov
2017: the democratic opposition in Venezuela
2016: Iraqi Yazidi women Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar
2015: Saudi blogger Raif Badawi
