Suren Gazaryan nominated to Netizen Prize

Suren Gazaryan from Krasnodar, a member of the Coordination Board of the Russian opposition and an activist of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus", has been nominated for the Netizen Prize.

Netizen is an Internet user, who is fighting for the freedom of dissemination of information across the web. The Netizen Prize is awarded by the Google Company jointly with the "Reporters Without Borders" annually from 2010 with the aim to support bloggers, Internet-journalists and "cyber-dissidents".

The website of this project reports that Suren Gazaryan has been put on the list of candidates for the Netizen Prize. Apart from him, eight other activists from Bulgaria, Mali, Egypt, Senegal, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Iran and Honduras have been nominated, the "Gazeta.Ru" writes.

Gazaryan was nominated for his reports about his ecological activities posted on his blog in the Livejournal, the "Grani.Ru" writes.

Mr Gazaryan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that in Russian he had been prosecuted on political motives. On December 21 he stated that he had left Russia, and on December 27, it became known that Gazaryan had applied the authorities of Estonia for political asylum.