The Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy. They document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power
The Nobel Peace Prize 2022honoured three (One Individual and Two Organisaitons) outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence, representing three neighbour countries. The Prize was awarded to Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. Awardees have been working in favour of humanist values, anti-militarism and principles of law. The laureates have revitalised and honoured Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and fraternity between nations – a vision most needed in the world today.
One individual and two organisations.
1. Ales Bialiatski (Individual)
Profession: Human rights advocate
Country: Belarus
2. Memorial (Organisation)
Profession: Protection of Human Rights
Country: Russia
3. Center for Civil Liberties
Profession: Protection of Human Rights
Country: Ukraine
The Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy. The 2022 Peace Prize is awarded 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 Peace Prize laureates have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens. Both the winners have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy.
Ales Bialiatski and his work
Who is he?
Ales Bialiatski has devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his country.
Country: Belarus
Age: 60 Years
Born: 25 September 1962, Vyartsilya, Karelia, Russia
Study: Ales Bialiatski studied philology after serving in the military.
His work
Ales Bialiatski fights for democratic rights, and civil liberties and has helps families of demonstrators, who were jailed and raised voices on the torture that ensues on political prisoners in Belarus.
He was one of the initiators of the democratic movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He has devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country. He established the organisation Viasna (Spring) in 1996 in response to the controversial constitutional amendments that gave the president dictatorial powers and that triggered widespread demonstrations.
Viasna provided support for the jailed demonstrators and their families. In the years that followed, Viasna evolved into a broad-based human rights organisation that documented and protested against the authorities’ use of torture against political prisoners. Government authorities have repeatedly sought to silence Ales Bialiatski. He was imprisoned from 2011 to 2014.
Following large-scale demonstrations against the regime in 2020, he was again arrested. He is still detained without trial. Despite tremendous personal hardship, Bialiatski has not yielded an inch in his fight for human rights and democracy in Belarus. The Republic of Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.
The Memorial and its work
Country: Russia
Founded: 1987, Moscow, Russia
The Russian human rights organisation 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.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and human rights advocate Svetlana Gannushkina were among the founders. Memorial is based on the notion that confronting past crimes is essential in preventing new ones. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Memorial grew to become the largest human rights organisation in Russia.
In addition to establishing a centre of documentation on victims of the Stalinist era, Memorial compiled and systematised information on political oppression and human rights violations in Russia. Memorial became the most authoritative source of information on political prisoners in Russian detention facilities. 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.
When civil society must give way to autocracy and dictatorship, peace is often the next victim. During the Chechen wars, Memorial gathered and verified information on abuses and war crimes perpetrated on the civilian population by Russian and pro-Russian forces. In 2009, the head of Memorial’s branch in Chechnya, Natalia Estemirova, was killed because of this work.
Civil society actors in Russia have been subjected to threats, imprisonment, disappearance and murder for many years. 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. The closures became effective in the following months, but the people behind Memorial refused to be shut down. In a comment on the forced dissolution, chairman Yan Rachinsky stated, “Nobody plans to give up.”
The Center for Civil Liberties and its work
Country: Ukraine
Founded: 2007, Kyiv, Ukraine
The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kyiv in 2007 for the purpose of advancing human rights and democracy in Ukraine. The center has taken a stand to strengthen Ukrainian civil society and pressure the authorities to make Ukraine a full-fledged democracy. To develop Ukraine into a state governed by rule of law, Center for Civil Liberties has actively advocated that Ukraine become affiliated with the International Criminal Court.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Center for Civil Liberties has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population. In collaboration with international partners, the center is playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes.
Four Nobel Peace laureates who were in jail when they won
Ales Bialiatski, who was jailed in July 2021, is the fourth laureate to win the Nobel Peace Prize whilst behind bars. He was arrested after months of mass demonstrations over Lukashenko’s rule on charges of tax evasion, a move seen by fellow dissidents as a thinly veiled attempt to silence him.
The other Peace Prize laureates who were imprisoned when they won are as follows:
1935: Carl Von Ossietzky, Germany
Journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize and was unable to make the trip to Oslo to collect the award. Von Ossietzky, who had been arrested three years earlier in a raid on opponents of Adolf Hitler following the Reichstag fire, was the first regime critic anywhere in the world to receive the prestigious award.
Furious over the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision, Adolf Hitler banned all German citizens from accepting a Nobel in any category. While Ossietzky was unable to pick up his diploma and gold Nobel medal, a German lawyer tricked his family into allowing him to pocket the prize money. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar
Myanmar’s deposed leader and democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, at a time when she was under house arrest as part of a crackdown by the country’s military leadership on the pro-democracy opposition. Honoured “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights,” Suu Kyi feared she would not be allowed to return to Myanmar if she travelled to Oslo.
She was instead represented at the 1991 prize ceremony by her two sons and her husband, who accepted the award on her behalf. Symbolically, an empty chair was placed on the stage to mark her absence. She gave her traditional Nobel lecture in 2012, after being freed in 2010 and going on to lead her country. She was then arrested again during the military coup of February 2021. Facing a multitude of charges, she risks spending the rest of her life in jail.
2010: Liu Xiaobo, China
The jailed Chinese dissident won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. He was serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion. Honoured “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”, Liu’s chair was symbolically left empty and no award was handed out.
His wife Liu Xia was placed under house arrest after the prize was announced and his three brothers were blocked from leaving China. He died in July 2017 of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital at the age of 61, after being transferred there from prison, becoming the second Nobel laureate to die in captivity.
You should know some interesting facts for Nobel Peace Prizes
- 103 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded during 1901–2022.
- 27 different organisations have been awarded.
- 2 peace prizes have been divided between three persons.
- 1 peace prize laureate, Le Duc Tho, has declined the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Youngest peace laureate: The youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 years old when awarded the 2014 peace prize.
- Oldest peace laureate: The oldest Nobel Peace Prize laureate to date is Joseph Rotblat, who was 87 years old when he was awarded the prize in 1995.
- Female Nobel Peace Prize laureates: Of the 110 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 18 are women. The first time a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a woman was in 1905, to Bertha von Suttner.
- Multiple Nobel Peace Prize laureates: The work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been honoured the most – three times – by a Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, the founder of the ICRC, Henry Dunant, was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
- Nominated but not awarded: The three most common searches on individuals in the Nobel Peace Prize nomination database are Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Joseph Stalin.
The Nobel Peace Prize
The founder of the Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel, was a Swedish cosmopolitan. On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. As described in Nobel’s will, one part was dedicated to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
In his will, he declared that the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee. When Alfred Nobel was alive, Norway and Sweden were united under one monarch, until 1905 when Norway became an independent kingdom.
Photo Credit: Nobel Prize
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