On 1 May 2025 the Human Rights Foundation announced the recipients of the 2025 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent: Cuban artist and pro-democracy activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Syrian activist and artist Azza Abo Rebieh, and Russian artist, poet, and musician Sasha Skochilenko.
For more on the Havel Prize and its laureates see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/438F3F5D-2CC8-914C-E104-CE20A25F0726
The Havel Prize ceremony was broadcast live at oslofreedomforum.com on May 26. see oslofreedomforum.com and follow @OsloFFon X and other social media.
LUIS MANUEL OTERO ALCÁNTARA
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban artist, activist, and political prisoner. He is the founder of the San Isidro Movement, a collective of artists and dissidents that emerged in 2018 to challenge censorship and demand greater freedoms in Cuba. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/09/19/the-rafto-prize-2024-to-cuban-artivist-luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/]
He gained international attention for his performance art and peaceful protests, including hunger strikes and symbolic acts of resistance. He was arrested during Cuba’s historic 2021 protests and sentenced to five years in prison following a closed trial. In 2022, following a submission by HRF, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment to be arbitrary and urged the Cuban regime to release him immediately. He is being held in Guanajay maximum-security prison.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, “Los Heroes no Pesan.” Courtesy of the artist.
AZZA ABO REBIEH
Azza Abo Rebieh is a Syrian artist born in Hama in 1980. During the Syrian revolution, she created graffiti, led workshops with women, and organized puppet theater for children in rural villages. In 2015, she was detained by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Art became her solace during her imprisonment in Adra prison, where she shared a cell with 30 women, many of whom were illiterate. Azza drew her cellmates, dignifying them through reminders and glimpses of themselves through sketches. Following her release, her prison drawings were exhibited at the Drawing Center in New York. Her work explores memory, resistance, and survival and is held in collections including the British Museum and Institut du Monde Arabe.
Azza Abo Rebieh, “Hindmosts.” Courtesy of the artist.
SASHA SKOCHILENKO
Sasha Skochilenko is a Russian artist, musician, poet, and former political prisoner. She was arrested in 2022 for distributing anti-war messages and sentenced in 2023 to seven years in prison under Russia’s so-called “fake news” law.
Skochilenko was released in 2024 as part of the Ankara prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia. She lives in Germany, where she continues her artistic work, participating in exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, and London to showcase the drawings she created in prison. Beyond activism, she’s the author of “Book About Depression,” which played a significant role in destigmatizing mental health issues in Russia.
Sasha Skochilenko replaced pricing labels with anti-war messages (seen here in English translation).
https://hrf.org/latest/announcing-the-2025-havel-prize-laureates-from-syria-russia-and-cuba/
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.