Iran’s Mahsa Amini awarded EU’s Sakharov human rights prize

Top MEP says Iranian woman's death in police custody last year triggered a movement that is making history'

Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the country's conservative Islamic theocracy, has been awarded the EU's top human rights prize.

The award, named for the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel peace prize laureate, died in 1989.