Oslo: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties.
The winners were announced on Friday in Oslo by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
BREAKING NEWS:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2022 #NobelPeacePrize to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/9YBdkJpDLU— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2022
The 60-year-old Bialiatski had founded Viasna (Spring) Human Rights Centre. It was set up in 1996 in response to a brutal crackdown on street protests by Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
“He has devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country,” said Andersen, adding that, “Government authorities have repeatedly sought to silence Ales Bialiatski.”
The Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Belarusian human rights activist is one for all political prisoners in Belarus, Belarusian opposition politician Pavel Latushko said, adding that it would motivate them to continue with their struggle. “We are sure we will win with the dictatorship of (Alexander) Lukashenko.”
Just before his arrest two years ago, Bialiatski wrote on his Facebook page that the Belarusian authorities “are acting as a regime of occupation”. His current health is not known, the BBC reported.
Described in the West as Europe’s last dictator, Lukashenko has been ruling Belarus with an iron fist since 1994.
On Thursday, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”
Also Read: Nobel Prize Winner Annie Ernaux, The Girl Of 1958
Three scientists jointly won the prize in physics on Tuesday for their ‘experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information of science’ while Svante Pääbo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution” on Monday.
Also Read: 2022 Physics Nobel Awarded To Alain Aspect, John Clauser & Anton Zeilinger
