Pulitzer Prize Winner And Former Russian Political Prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Murza, To Speak In Stony Brook

STONY BROOK, NY —Pulitzer Prize winner and former Russian political prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Murza, will speak Tuesday at Stony Brook University at the annual lecture honoring Long Island journalist, Marie Colvin, officials said.

Murza will serve as the guest speaker at the Marie Colvin Distinguished Lecture, which has a theme this year of “Vladimir Putin’s War on Truth.”

He will discuss the history of media suppression in Russia, as well as his opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in him spending more than two years in prison, including 11 months in solitary confinement.

He was sentenced to 25 years for treason but released in an East-West prisoner exchange in 2024.

The program will begin in the Charles Wang Center at 6 p.m.

His talk is part of a series, which invites leading international journalists, media professionals, and thought leaders to campus to talk about their experiences and discuss the role of journalism in society.

Colvin, of East Norwich, was an acclaimed war correspondent, who was killed in Syria in February 2012 while working for The Sunday Times of London.

Her story was turned into a Hollywood movie, "A Private War,"starring Rosamund Pike.

Her final days in Syria were commemorated in a documentary, "Under the Wire," by the photographer Paul Conroy, who was injured alongside her.

Murza serves as vice-president at the Free Russia Foundation, chairman of the Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative at the McCain Institute, senior advisor at Human Rights First, and senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.