Zelensky and Gisèle Pelicot receive the international “Four Freedoms Award”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky observed a infinitesimal of soundlessness for the victims of wide Russian airstrikes overnight arsenic helium received the planetary Four Freedoms Award connected behalf of the Ukrainian people, successful designation of their courageousness during the warfare that began successful February 2022.

The grant was presented earlier contiguous by the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, based successful the Dutch metropolis of Middelburg.

The Institute stated that the 2026 prize was awarded to Zelensky and the Ukrainian radical “in designation of their courageous conflict for state and ideology nether highly hard circumstances.” The yearly Four Freedoms Awards are inspired by a 1941 code to Congress by Franklin D. Roosevelt, which outlined 4 cardinal quality rights: state of code and expression, state of religion, state from want, and state from fear.

After receiving the grant from Anne Roosevelt, Zelensky stressed that the state to unrecorded without fearfulness should ne'er beryllium taken for granted. He described Russian President Vladimir Putin arsenic “a planetary threat” and urged the planetary assemblage to support its military, political, and ineligible enactment for Ukraine.

Freedom from Fear Award

The Roosevelt Foundation besides awarded the “Freedom from Fear Award” to Gisèle Pelicot, a 73-year-old French pistillate who has go a planetary awesome successful the combat against intersexual unit with the slogan “Shame indispensable alteration sides.”

Pelicot was subjected to repeated intersexual maltreatment implicit a play of 10 years by her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and different men helium recruited done an online platform. He drugged her and invited them to their location successful the colony of Mazan to battle her portion she was unconscious.

She chose not to person the proceedings held down closed doors, insisting that “shame indispensable alteration sides,” truthful that perpetrators—not victims—are held accountable. The trial, which shocked France, began successful September 2024 astatine the transgression tribunal successful Avignon and lasted 4 months.

Pelicot besides authored a memoir, published successful February by Flammarion, titled Et la joie de vivre (“And the Joy of Life”). The publication has been translated into 22 languages and released internationally nether the English rubric A Hymn to Life.

Other Awards

The Roosevelt Foundation announced that the recipient of the “Freedom of Religion” grant would stay undisclosed for information reasons. Chilean activistic Isadora Uribe Silva received the “Freedom from Want” award.

The “Freedom of Speech and Expression” grant was presented to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit enactment that promotes property state and defends journalists’ rights worldwide.

Among those contiguous astatine the ceremonial were Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, King Willem-Alexander, and Princess Beatrix. The Roosevelt household has Dutch roots.

In her speech, Anne Roosevelt noted that “the warfare successful Ukraine shows that the conflict for state is inactive arsenic applicable contiguous arsenic it was 80 years ago.” The awards person been presented since 1982, marking the centenary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birth.

Past recipients of the Four Freedoms Awards see Kofi Annan, Angela Merkel, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela.