LAST UPDATE | 7 Oct 2022

THE NORWEGIAN NOBEL Committee has announced the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Committee has awarded jailed Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation ‘Memorial’, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation ‘Center for Civil Liberties’.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the judges wanted to honour “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine”.

The Committee has also called on Belarus to free peace laureate Ales Bialiatski, who has been imprisoned since July of last year. 

He is still detained without trial and the Committee in its announcement said: “Despite tremendous personal hardship, Bialiatski has not yielded an inch in his fight for human rights and democracy in Belarus.”

The Nobel Committee says Bialiatski has devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country.

He founded the organisation Viasna in 1996.

Viasna has provided support for the jailed demonstrators and their families.

It’s evolved into a broad-based human rights organisation that documented and protested against the authorities’ use of torture against political prisoners.

Meanwhile, Memorial was established in 1987 by human rights activists in the former Soviet Union.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and human rights advocate Svetlana Gannushkina were among the founders.

They wanted to ensure that the victims of the communist regime’s oppression would never be forgotten.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Memorial grew to become the largest human rights organisation in Russia.

However, the Committee notes: “As part of the government’s harassment of Memorial, the organisation was stamped early on as a ‘foreign agent’.

“In December 2021, the authorities decided that Memorial was to be forcibly liquidated and the documentation centre was to be closed permanently.”

But Memorial Chairman Yan Rachinsky has since stated, “Nobody plans to give up.”

Elsewhere, the Center for Civil Liberties was founded in the capital Kyiv in 2007 for the purpose of advancing human rights and democracy in Ukraine.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Center for Civil Liberties has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population.

The Committee says the “center is playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes”.

The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries.

The Committe said: “They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

It added: “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.”

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (€914,000) and will be handed out on 10 December.

The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1895.

With additional reporting from Press Association