Dublin, Nov 14: Former Czech President Vaclav Havel became the first winner of a new "Ambassador of Conscience" award from the human rights group Amnesty International at a ceremony in Dublin. The award recognises exceptional individual leadership and witness in the fight to protect and promote human rights
"I am very glad I received this prize," said a delighted Havel on receiving the award yesterday.
Amnesty spokesman Bill Shipsey said Havel had successfully and effortlessly made the transition from prisoner to president, from dissident to democratic leader, from playwright to player on the world stage.
"Through many years of hardship and repression, he kept the idea of freedom alive, and he successfully led his people to freedom," Shipsey said.
"He is a symbol of the aspirations of peoples everywhere for liberty and respect for human rights," Shipsey added.
As an emerging playwright in the early 1960s, Havel became well known for his plays about the de-humanising and repressive bureaucracy of communist regimes.
After he denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 his plays were banned in his country, where he was repeatedly harassed and imprisoned but continued to speak out for human rights. In December 1989, he became President of Czechoslovakia when the communist leadership stepped down.
In 1993, he presided over the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia into two independent nations becoming the first President of the new Czech Republic. He was succeeded earlier this year by Vaclav Klaus. Bureau Report