The Prizewinners 2005

Göttingen
Sergej Adamowitsch Komaljow (born 02.03.1930) was first noticed by the Soviet authorities in 1956. Back then, he was protesting against the military intervention in Hungary. Together with Andrej Sacharow, he stood up for human rights and consequently lost his position as a doctor candidate in biology in 1970. In 1974, he was condemned to seven years in prison and three years of internment on grounds of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”. From 1990 to 1993, he headed the Russian delegation at the UN Human Rights Commission in Genf. During Russian first war against Chechnya (1994), he documented crimes in disputed Grosny and brandmarked the barbarian actions of the military. Kowaljow is on the steering committee of the leading human rights organization Memorial. He is one of the sharpest critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and of the on-going second Chechnyan war.

Mustafa Dschemilew (born 13.11.1943) and his family were forcefully deported from Aj-Serez on the Crim to Usbekistan on 18.03.1944. Since 1961, he has been politically active in the forbidden "Council of the Crimean Tatars Youth”. After almost fifteen years of internment, he was released thanks to Perestroika. In 1989, he returned to Crimean with his family, after he had called for the return of Crimean Tartars. In 1991 and 1996, he was elected president of the Crimean Tartars Parliament. During the Orange Revolution of the fall 2004, Dschemilew supported the to-be Ukrainian president Yushenko. As Member of Parliament of the party "Our Ukraine”, he was engaged in the Human Rights and Nationl Minorities Commission. In 1998, he was recognized by the UNHCR with the Nansen Prize.