This year’s Nobel Peace Prize goes to the Belarusian human rights lawyer Ales Bialiatski. Two organizations were also recognized, Memorial from Russia and the Center for Civil Liberties from Ukraine.
As always, the list of candidates was kept strictly confidential beforehand. It was only known that 251 personalities and 92 organizations were nominated.
Honored with the Nobel Peace Prize: the Belarusian human rights lawyer Ales Bialiatski
(Photo: TT News Agency/Reuters)
In the run-up there was speculation as to whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy could receive the award. Betting shops have his name at the top of their list. Experts, on the other hand, tend not to believe that the award goes to someone who is in the middle of a war.
Last year the award was shared. It went to the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who fights for press freedom under the Duterte regime. And to Dmitri Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novaja Gazeta, which was already under extreme pressure last year and which Putin now had banned because of its critical reporting on the attack on Ukraine.
Ressa and Muratov, it said in the 2021 founding of the Nobel Committee, would be honored “for their efforts to preserve freedom of expression, which is a prerequisite for democracy and lasting peace”.