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

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The jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel peace prize.

“The Norwegian Nobel committee wishes to honour three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine,” the committee chair, Berit Reiss-Andersen, said.

She called on Belarus to release Bialiatski from prison.

The prize will be seen by many as a condemnation of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who is celebrating his 70th birthday on Friday, and Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, making it one of the most politically contentious in decades.

The award was not an anti-Putin prize, however, Reiss-Andersen said. “We always give the prize for something and to something and not against someone,” she told reporters.

In July last year Belarusian security police raided offices and homes of lawyers and human rights activists, detaining Bialiatski and others in a new crackdown on opponents of Lukashenko.

Authorities had moved to shut down non-state media outlets and human rights groups after mass protests the previous August against a presidential election the opposition said was rigged.

The Nobel peace prize, worth 10m Swedish kronor (?800,000), will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.

“The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens,” the Norwegian Nobel committee said in its citation.

“They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy.”

Bialiatski was hailed by the committee as one of the initiators of the democracy movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. “He has devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country,” the committee said.

The award of the prize to Bialiatski was recognition for the whole Belarusian people in standing up to Lukashenko, Franak Via?orka, an opposition spokesperson, said. “He’s kept in inhuman conditions and we hope it will help to release him and thousands of others from Lukashenko’s and KGB’s cells,” Via?orka said.

The committee said the Center for Civil Liberties had taken a stand to strengthen Ukrainian civil society and pressure the authorities to make Ukraine a fully fledged democracy. “After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the centre has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian population,” it added. “The centre is playing a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.”

Memorial was established in 1987 by human rights activists in the former Soviet Union who wanted to ensure that the victims of the communist regime’s oppression would never be forgotten.

The committee said the group “is based on the notion that confronting past crimes is essential in preventing new ones. The organisation has also been standing at the forefront of efforts to combat militarism and promote human rights and government based on rule of law.”