In an exclusive interview with the BBC's HARDtalk programme, Mr Rachinsky said his organisation had been advised to decline the award, but "naturally, we took no notice of this advice".Its first chairman - Arseny Roginsky - was sent to Soviet labour camps for the so-called "anti-communist" study of history.The woman who runs Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties - another of the prize-winners - refused to be interviewed alongside Mr Rachinsky.The Center for Civil Liberties was recognized for its work promoting democracy in Ukraine and investigating alleged Russian war crimes in the country.He is the founder of the country's Viasna (Spring) Human Rights Centre, which was set up in 1996 in response to a brutal crackdown of street protests by Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko."