STRASBOURG, Sept 30, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The Council of Europe on Monday awarded its 2024 rights prize to Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado for her struggle for democracy under President Nicolas Maduro's iron-fisted rule.

Machado said she was "deeply moved, honoured and grateful" to be the first Latin American to win the award, named after the late Czech dissident, playwright and post-communist president Vaclav Havel.

She is currently in hiding in Venezuela in the wake of presidential elections Maduro claims to have won, an outcome furiously contested by the opposition.

The award was received on her behalf at Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg by her daughter Ana.

"I want to dedicate this recognition to the millions of Venezuelans who, every day, embody Havel's values and ideas," Machado said in a video address.

Her movement had demonstrated "the victory of democrats over dictatorship", she said, adding: "Today our struggle continues, because the truth persists until it prevails."

Machado, 56, played a key role in Venezuela's presidential election in July. Although the authorities proclaimed Maduro the winner, the opposition believes its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won.

Machado is currently in hiding in Venezuala, amid a wave of arrests of members of her inner circle. Gonzalez Urrutia went into exile in Spain on September 8.

Previous winners include the 2023 laureate, the Turkish philanthropist and civil society activist Osman Kavala, who remains in prison after his arrest in November 2017, and 2022 winner the Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza was present for the ceremony in Strasbourg following his release earlier this year after over two years behind bars in Russia.