(Strasbourg) “The European Union extends a friendly hand in the darkest hour of the republican history of my country”: Julio Borges, president of the Venezuelan national assembly (dismissed by the regime), utters these words at the start of his speech in the premises of the European Parliament, as he receives, “on behalf of Venezuelan people”, the Sacharov prize 2017 for freedom of thought. Borges tells about the “historical bonds” between his country and Europe, recalls his parents and his grandparents, who migrated from the old continent to Latin America. Then, he mentions the 157 fellow citizens “murdered by the brutal repression of the government” led by Nicolas Maduro and the 350 “unfairly imprisoned” people. “The entire country receives this honour”, Borges says: “the mother who goes without food to give it to her children, the children forced to rummage through rubbish, the old people who die without medicines, the young man who emigrates to have a future, the teacher who does his job in the hope that he can raise free consciences, the journalists who are prevented from telling the truth”. Borges’s is an exposé of the lack of freedom and democracy in Venezuela and rampant poverty, as well as a call on the international community, that it will not fail to give support and humanitarian aids “to a population that is dying because it has no food or medicines”. He adds: “We will go on with our peaceful opposition to have freedom and rights. We are not fuelled by hatred or revenge, we only want justice and we want people to be able to express themselves freely through election”.