awards
Nobel Peace Prize goes to Eastern European human rights activists
A demonstration for the Russian human rights organization Memorial last year in Warsaw. photo
© Tomasz Gzell/PAP/dpa
The Nobel Peace Prize addresses the war in Eastern Europe and goes to three prizewinners: human rights activists from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Human rights champions in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine will receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year. The world’s most prestigious peace prize goes to the imprisoned Belarusian human rights lawyer Ales Byaljatzki, the Russian organization Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. This was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday in Oslo.
This year’s award winners represented civil society in their home countries, said committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen at the awards ceremony. For many years they have campaigned to protect the fundamental rights of citizens and the right to criticize those in power.
With that, the days of Nobel Prize announcements have reached their peak. The winners in the categories medicine, physics, chemistry and literature had already been announced this week. Next Monday, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences will follow, which is the only one of the prizes that does not go back to the testament of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), inventor of the dynamite and founder of the prize.
This year, the Nobel Prizes are again endowed with ten million Swedish crowns (around 980,000 euros) per category. They are traditionally awarded on the anniversary of Nobel’s death, December 10th. The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one of the prizes that is not presented in Stockholm, Sweden, but in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
The Nobel Peace Prize is considered the most important peace prize on earth. A total of 343 candidates – 251 personalities and 92 organizations – were nominated for him this year. The names of the nominees are traditionally kept secret for 50 years. Last year, the Filipino Maria Ressa and the Russian Dmitri Muratow were honored with the prize. The two journalists received it for their fight for freedom of expression.