Thursday, March 28

Nobel peace prize given to human rights activists in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine | nobel peace prize


The jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, in an award the committee said was to honor champions of “peaceful coexistence” during the most tumultuous period in Europe since the second world war.

“The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

She called on Belarus to release Bialiatski from prison so the veteran activist could attend the award ceremony that will take place on 10 December in Oslo City Hall, when each recipient from the three neighboring countries will receive 10m Swedish crowns (£804,000).

The committee’s decision will be widely seen as a strong rebuke to Vladimir Putin, who turned 70 on Friday, but Reiss-Andersen said the award was not meant to address the Russian president, a strong ally of the authoritarian Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.

“This prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday, or in any other sense – except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists,” she said.

The committee said it had chosen the three laureates to honor the champions of “human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence” in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Byaliatsky, the head of the Belarus rights group Viasna, was detained last July as part of a sweeping crackdown on the opposition by Lukashenko after huge anti-government demonstrations.

Also Read  The Midnight Club review – this teen horror is like a morbid Breakfast Club | TV

He is the fourth person to receive the Nobel peace prize while in prison or detention, after Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition abroad, congratulated Bialiatski, saying the award was “an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom & democracy”. “All political prisoners must be released without delay,” she tweeted.

Congratulations to Belarusian human rights defender & political prisoner Ales Bialiatski for receiving the 2022 #NobelPeacePrize. The prize is an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom & democracy. All political prisoners must be released without delay. pic.twitter.com/szxmB5YG5g

— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) October 7, 2022

n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/Tsihanouskaya/status/1578315049101234179?s=20&t=uEl-H2GHHd8wKSi0uVgInA”,”id”:”1578315049101234179″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”: “inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”452be44e-ac64-4ca0-95e0-500ac14adc04″}}”>

Congratulations to Belarusian human rights defender & political prisoner Ales Bialiatski for receiving the 2022 #NobelPeacePrize. The prize is an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom & democracy. All political prisoners must be released without delay. pic.twitter.com/szxmB5YG5g

— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) October 7, 2022

The news was also welcomed in Ukraine, where the Center for Civil Liberties said in a statement it “thanks the international community for their support”, and that the prize was “very important to us”.

The Center for Civil Liberties was established in 2007 and has done extensive work documenting Russian war crimes during the seven month-long conflict in Ukraine.

The third recipient, the Russia Memorial group, was shut down by the Kremlin last year, in what was widely seen as a watershed moment in Putin’s crackdown on independent thought. Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document political repressions carried out under the Soviet Union, building a database of victims of the Great Terror and gulag camps. At the time of closure, Memorial was the country’s oldest human rights group.

The news that Memorial won the Nobel peace prize came as a court in Moscow was holding a hearing on seizing the group’s assets.

Reiss-Andersen said all three laureates made “an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power”.

Friday’s decision was quickly applauded by human rights activists in the region.

Tanya Lokshina, the Europe and Central Asia associate director at Human Rights Watch, called the decision “a great gesture of solidarity with rights groups besieged by autocrats”.

“Awarding Nobel prize to jailed Belarusian rights defender Ales Bialiatski, Center for Civil Liberties whose team is at the forefront of documenting war crimes in Ukraine, and Russian rights giant Memorial is a great gesture of solidarity with rights groups besieged by autocrats,” she tweeted.

“On Putin’s 70th birthday, the Nobel peace prize is awarded to a Russian human rights group that he shut down, a Ukrainian human rights group that is documenting his war crimes, and a Belarusian human rights activist whom his ally Lukashenko has imprisoned,” tweeted Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch.

But there was also criticism in Kyiv on the decision to award the prize to a Belarussian national and the Russian human rights group Memorial, two countries that Ukraine is currently at war with.

“Nobel Committee has an interesting understanding of word ‘peace’ if representatives of two countries that attacked a third one receive,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, tweeted.

Nobel Committee has an interesting understanding of word "peace" if representatives of two countries that attacked a third one receive @NobelPrize together. Neither Russian nor Belarusian organizations were able to organize resistance to the war. This year’s Nobel is "awesome".

— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) October 7, 2022

n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1578337607054131200″,”id”:”1578337607054131200″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”: false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”3d0f1ad2-6c7a-49ce-8a64-79dee9b468cb”}}”>

Nobel Committee has an interesting understanding of the word “peace” if representatives of two countries that attacked a third one receive @NobelPrize together. Neither Russian nor Belarusian organizations were able to organize resistance to the war. This year’s Nobel is “awesome.”

— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) October 7, 2022

Asked whether the bestowing of the prize would “increase the risk for suppression and repression” of groups such as Memorial – and harm activists – Reiss-Andersen said: “This is a dilemma the Nobel committee often faces and it is something we always consider and take into consideration very seriously. But we also have the point of view that the individuals behind these organisations, they have chosen to take a risk and pay a high price and show courage to fight for what they believe in.

“We are of course particularly concerned about Mr Bialiatski, who is detained under very hard conditions in a prison… and we do pray that this prize will not affect him negatively. But we hope it might boost his morale from him.”




www.theguardian.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *