Foreign minister presents awards for promoting Czech Republic

Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek presented this year's Gratias Agit awards for promoting the Czech Republic abroad to 15 Czech and foreign personalities and a Russian NGO on Friday. The 2019 laureates are Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac, who has won fame with his unique face transplants he performs in the United States, Austrian diplomat Karl Peterlik, who worked at the embassy in Prague in 1968-1989 and Volodymyr Cubirko, who is striving for cooperation between the Czech Republic and the Ukrainian Zakarpattia Oblast. Petricek also awarded Beatrix Jerie, promoting Czech music in Switzerland, and Czech Art and Culture Festival Prague-Berlin director Dusan Robert Parizek. Out of institutions, the award went to the Memorial Russian NGO, established on 1987, which focuses on human rights protection. The laureates also include people who had to flee the totalitarian Czechoslovakia.