Three “champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence” share this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which was also a poisoned gift to the Russian president during times of war in Ukraine and on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, detained for more than a year without trial, the Russian organization Memorial, banned by Moscow, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties are the 2022 winners.
“The Nobel Peace Prize winners represent civil society in their country. For many years they have promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens. They have made an exceptional effort to fight war crimes, human rights violations and the abuse of they have demonstrated the importance of civil society for peace and democracy”, Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Berit Reiss-Andersen said during the official announcement in Oslo.
On the day Putin turned 70, this award can be seen as a poisoned gift. Reiss-Andersen claimed that the award is “not against anyone”, but distinguishes positive actions. “The attention President Putin has drawn to himself is the repression of civil society and human rights defenders”, he said. Last year, one of the winners was Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, director of the newspaper Novaya Gazetaawarded along with Filipina Maria Ressa for defending freedom of expression.
The Nobel Committee says that “through their consistent efforts in favor of humanist values, anti-militarism and the principles of justice, this year’s laureates have revived and honored Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and brotherhood among nations,” as this is “a vision that is most needed in today’s world”.
However, the Belarusian regime of Alexander Lukashenko, who had been in power for nearly three decades, took a different stance. “In recent years, several fundamental decisions of the Nobel Committee have been so politicized that, sorry, Alfred Nobel is tormented and turning his grave”Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz wrote on Twitter.
Who are the winners?
Ales Bialiatski, 60, is one of the faces of the democratic movement that emerged in Belarus in the 1980s and founded the human rights organization Viasna (Spring) in 1996 in response to the constitutional reform that gave Lukashenko dictatorial powers. Bialiatski was detained between 2011 and 2014 and has been held without trial since July 2021 for alleged tax evasion.
“This award is for Ales’ decades of selfless struggle for human rights, democratic values and the rebirth of the Belarusian nation,” Viasna lawyer Pavel Sapelka said. “Despite enormous personal difficulties, Bialiatsky did not give an inch in his fight for human rights and democracy in Belarus”Reiss-Andersen reported and launched an appeal for his release.
Bialiatski is fourth to receive Nobel Peace Prize while incarcerated, after the German journalist and pacifist Carl Von Ossietsky (1935), the Burmese Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) and the Chinese Liu Xiaobo (2010). The German and the Chinese would eventually die while still in prison, without being able to receive the award, while the Burmese, who was represented at the ceremony by her husband and children. In 2012, she would give the traditional lecture in Oslo, two years after her release. However, she was arrested again in 2021, during the military coup in Myanmar.
The Nobel Peace Prize this year also honors two organizations, the Russian memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. Memorial was founded in 1987, still in the days of the Soviet Union, by another prize winner, Andrei Sakharov (1975), based on the idea that “confronting the crimes of the past is essential to prevent new ones”.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, it became Russia’s largest human rights organization and the most reliable source of information about political prisoners in Russian detention centers. “As part of the government’s intimidation of Memorial, the organization was labeled a ‘foreign agent’ early on,” the Nobel Committee said, and in December Moscow ordered the shutdown — those responsible are refusing to do so.
“This award gives us moral strength” and is “very important” in “depressing times,” said Memorial head Yan Rachinsky., outside a Moscow courthouse after a hearing over the seizure of one of the organization’s offices. And he claimed that all Russian political prisoners “deserve more than us” the award, and he also remembered that the Memorial is not protected from the Russian authorities. After Muratov won last year, Moscow closed its newspaper, which launched a new version from Latvia to avoid censorship.
The third recipient was the Center for Civil Liberties. This center was established in Kiev in 2007 with the aim of “promoting human rights and democracy in Ukraine”, including by campaigning for the country’s accession to the International Criminal Court. “After the invasion of Russia in February 2022, he made efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population”said the Nobel Committee. “In collaboration with international partners, the center is at the forefront of holding the perpetrators accountable for their crimes,” he said.
The center’s leader, lawyer Olexandra Matviychuk, who turns 39 today, said she was “elated” to be awarded the Nobel Prize. She was surprised during a train journey between Poland and Kiev, and the press conference is scheduled for next Saturday. “We must establish an international tribunal and bring Putin and Lukashenko and other war criminals to justice,” he wrote on Facebook.
reactions
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres congratulated the winners, arguing that Civil society groups are the oxygen of democracy and catalysts for peace, social progress and economic growth. However, the Portuguese lamented that “civic space” is “getting narrower all over the world”. The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, emphasized the “proper tribute to the courage and solidarity that should inspire us all”.
European Commission leader Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter that: “The Nobel Committee recognized the extraordinary courage of women and men who fight against autocracy. They show the true strength of civil society in the fight for democracy”.
Source: DN
