EVGENIA KARA-MURZA

Trustees Award | Winner | Freedom of Expression Awards

Index on Censorship announces Russian human rights activist, Evgenia Kara-Murza as the winner of the 2024 Freedom of Expression Trustee Award. 

Alongside awards in art, campaigning and journalism, each year Index on Censorship’s Trustees award an individual or organisation working to fearlessly defend free expression. 

Evgenia Kara-Murza said: “It is easier to commit crimes in the silence, in the darkness, and behind closed doors. This is why freedom of speech is always the first victim of any autocracy. But free speech is not just some abstract notion. Behind it are countless stories of those who risk their freedom and often their lives to defend their right to exercise it. Those who break the silence, light candles in the dark and throw open the doors to make it harder for dictators to hide the truth about their evil acts.”

Evgenia Kara-Murza is Advocacy Director of Free Russia Foundation, activist, translator and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, twice-poisoned Russian opposition leader, imprisoned on 11 April 2022 for protesting Russia’s war on Ukraine. For more than two years, Kara-Murza travelled the world, leading a campaign to speak out against her husband’s arrest and criticise Putin’s regime. As a result of her campaign, on 1st August 2024, Vladimir Kara-Murza was released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange deal.

Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, the Chair of Index on Censorship, said: “This award is recognition that even a free society demands courage and sacrifice to stand up for freedom of expression. It has been amply demonstrated, not least by Index’s own magazine, that the dictator’s reach extends to people lucky enough to live in a democratic country. Evgenia Kara-Murza, in full knowledge that she placed herself and her children at real risk, has campaigned ceaselessly for freedom for her husband and other opponents of the Kremlin’s rule. Her commitment has been absolute and we have the privilege of honouring her with this award.”

The Freedom of Expression Awards celebrate the brave efforts of individuals and organisations worldwide to protect free expression, advocate for the right to information, and combat censorship. Selected by a distinguished panel of judges, the winners are honoured for their extraordinary courage and commitment to truth, justice, and human rights—often in the face of serious threats, including harassment, imprisonment, and even death.

The jury panel for the 2024 awards is made up of Baroness Hollick OBE; Ziyad Marar, President of Global Publishing at Sage; Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, chair of Index on Censorship; Ben Preston, Culture Editor of The Times & Sunday Times; Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship.

Meet the other 2024 Freedom of Expression Awards winners