WASHINGTON DC – Vladimir Kara-Murza received the Oxi Courage Award by the Oxi Day Foundation in Washington, DC on October 25. The Award was presented by KPS Capital Partners co-Founder and co-Managing Partner Michael Psaros.

Kara-Murza is Vice President of Open Russia and a leading activist for democracy and civility in Russia. He was elected to the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition in 2012, and served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party from 2015 to 2016. He has been poisoned twice by his enemies.

The author of two documentaries, They Chose Freedom and Nemtsov, Murza started his career as a journalist. He currently acts as Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and recently served as a pall bearer at Senator John McCain’s funeral

Psaros described Murza as “a man who is changing the world. We are going to honor Vladimir. You have all seen the 60 Minutes videos and the spectacular press coverage that he deserves worldwide.” Psaros said Murza “is Russia’s foremost dissident.

“If you speak to Vladimir, what is very clear is that not only is he a very devout Orthodox Christian but he lives his Faith. When I asked him where do you find the courage, because this man has been poisoned more than once, this man has been the target of assassination and then he gets up and he keeps going, he basically said ‘because I must.’ He is basically channeling Luke when he says that. He then talked about his family and he said that he couldn’t do what he does, he couldn’t carry on the fight and fight every day risking his life it wasn’t for his wife, Eugenia.

“Vladimir’s great, great grandfather was shot. His great uncle was shot. It would have been very easy for him with his spectacular credentials – a graduate of Cambridge – to do whatever he wanted to do, but instead, he decided to fight for reforming Russia. To fight a monstrous regime. Faith, family, and country.”
LIU XIA

Photo by Paul Morse/OXI DAY Foundation.

Also, Liu Xia was a recipient of the Oxi Courage Award the widow of China’s most prominent human rights advocate, Nobel Laureate, Liu Xiabo. Liu Xia was recently freed in July after serving eight years of confinement on house arrest despite having no charges leveled against her.

She is a Chinese painter, poet and photographer.

Xia met her husband while they were both part of the Beijing literary scene in the 1980s. The two married while he was imprisoned in China in a labor re-education camp in
1996.

She prefers to lead the solitary life; however, she has been described as her husband’s “most important link to the outside world.” In that role, she also personally experiences pressures from Chinese authorities for publicly voicing opinion.

The Oxi Day Award is given each year to persons from anywhere in the world who have taken courageous action that contributed to the promotion or preservation of freedom and democracy.