Former Rapporteur of the Turkish Constitutional Court Murat Arslan has been awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize 2017.
The winner was named during the first day of the PACE autumn session.
Murat Arslan is in detention in Turkey and could not get the award himself.
The nominee, in detention since 2016, Arslan is a former well-known and reputed Rapporteur of the Turkish Constitutional Court and President of the now dissolved Association for the Union of Judges and Prosecutors (YARSAV). He has always been a supporter of the independence of the judiciary.
The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, created in 2013, is awarded each year by the PACE, in partnership with the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation, and the support of the Czech Government. The Prize consists of a sum of €60 000, a trophy and a diploma. The 2016 Prize went to Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad.
