Journalist Mykola Semena was awarded the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum’s Pavel Sheremet Journalism Award in absentia in Brussels on November 28.
Semena contributes to RFE/RL’s Krym.Realii (Crimea.Realities) website. He was charged in April 2016 under the Russian criminal code for allegedly violating Russia’s territorial integrity after he wrote an article expressing the view that Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, should be returned to Ukraine.
The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) aims to strengthen civil society in the Eastern Partnership countries as well as foster cooperation and the exchange of experiences between civil society organizations from partner countries and the EU.
Their Pavel Sheremet Journalism Award is named in honor of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent journalist known for denouncing political abuses in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. He was killed in a car bombing in Kyiv in July 2016.