Respekt weekly wins US Embassy award

The U.S. embassy in Prague bestowed the annual Alice Garrigue Masaryk Award for contribution to the advancement of human rights in the country on the Czech weekly Respekt whose editor-in-chief Martin M. Simecka received the award from U.S. ambassador Richard Graber Monday.

The embassy said Respekt won the award for „its exceptional commitment to objective analysis and reporting on issues of human rights and democracy.“ Simecka said the weekly considered human rights its long-term priority.

„We focus on human right observance not only in the Czech Republic, but our authors carefully monitor the situation abroad, for example in Belarus, Cuba and China,“ Simecka said.

The award is named after Alice Masaryk, founder of the Czech Red Cross and daughter of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the first Czechoslovak president, in memory of her efforts to fight social injustice and her personal bravery in defending human rights.

The first person awarded was Jiri Skopal from the Human Rights League in 2004.

In 2005, the award went to Kumar Vishwanathan of India for his work with Romanies in north Moravia.

Last year, the award was presented to Lucie Sladkova, director of the International Organisation for Migration Prague.