European Parliament lawmakers on Thursday put the Ukrainian people and detained Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on a shortlist for the EU's top award, the Sakharov Prize.
The winner of the 50,000-euro ($48,000) prize -- which recognises human rights champions -- is to be announced next Wednesday.
The shortlist, drawn up by MEPs sitting on the European Parliament's foreign affairs and development committees, comprised three entries.
One is the "brave people of Ukraine, represented by their president, elected leaders, and civil society" for their endurance fighting the Russian invasion.
Another is Assange, a 51-year-old Australian held in a high-security British jail as he battles an American demand for his extradition to face trial for divulging US military secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The third is Colombia's Truth Commission, a body started in 2018 that seeks to shed light on atrocities committed during Colombia's five-decade conflict that ended in 2016.
Last year's winner of the Sakharov Prize was Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition activist and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin who survived a 2020 poisoning with the Soviet-designed Novichok nerve agent.
