Russia
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva is Russian human right activist. She was awarded The third Václav Havel Human Rights Prize which honours outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights. Ludmilla Alexeeva, now aged 88, is a veteran human rights defender in her native Russia. In her youth, she gave up a promising academic career to join the Soviet dissident movement, going on to become a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Forced to emigrate to the US in 1977, she returned to Russia in 1989 to continue her work, becoming President of the International Helsinki Foundation and later joining the Russian President’s Commission on Human Rights.