Journalist Viktoria Roshchyna receives posthumous human rights award

Viktoria Roshchyna, a Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity, was posthumously awarded the 2024 Homo Homini Human Rights Award by the Czech human rights organization  People in Need on March 12.

Sevgil Musayeva, the chief editor of the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda, accepted the honor on Roshchyna's behalf at a ceremony in Prague, activist Maksym Butkevych announced on social media. Roshchyna shares the award with Nigerian journalist Philip Obaji.

Roshchyna received the Homo Homini award for her "courage to tell the stories of Ukrainians in the Russian-occupied territories and for her long-term journalistic work dedicated to portraying issues threatening the democratic order of Ukraine, which she did not compromise on, even at the risk of her personal safety," the executive board of People in Need said.

The journalist disappeared in August 2023 while reporting in Russian-occupied territory, with Moscow admitting her detention the following year.

Previously, in March 2022, Roshchyna was detained for 10 days by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers while leaving Berdiansk in the direction of Mariupol. As a condition of her release, she was forced to record a video saying Russian forces had saved her life.

Ukrainian officials confirmed Roshchyna's death on Oct. 10, 2024, but said that the circumstances were still under investigation.  

The Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO, reported in October 2024 that Roshchyna had been held in at least two notorious Russian prisons: the penal colony n. 77 in Berdiansk in occupied Ukraine and the detention center n. 2 in Russia's Taganrog.

Both facilities are known for the use of torture against prisoners. Roshchyna was taken out of Taganrog detention center sometime in September 2024. According to Russia, she died on Sept. 19.

Ukrainian prosecutors have classified Roshchyna's death as a war crime and murder.