Uladzimir Niakliaeu won prestigious Swedish PEN Award

Prominent Belarusan poet and former presidential candidate was awarded the Swedish PEN organization's Kurt Tucholsky Award.

Swedish PEN had called Niakliaeu an "outstanding poet and true advocate of freedom of speech."

Sweden's Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth presented the award to the Belarusan poet at a special ceremony in Stockholm on the evening of February 25, reports RFE/RL.

Let us recall that Uladzimir Niakliaeu was announced as the winner in November 2011 but was unable to travel to Sweden after being prohibited from leaving Belarus by the authorities.

He was given a two-year suspended sentence for his role in a December 2010 protest against the disputed re-election of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. He was severely beaten at the protest.

The award of the Swedish PEN organization was established in honour of Kurt Tucholsky, who was a German-Jewish journalist and writer whose books were banned by the Nazis. He moved to Paris and later to Sweden to avoid persecution.