We reported earlier that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to the jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organisation, Centre for Civil Liberties.
The honour will be widely seen as a rebuke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is celebrating his 70th birthday, and his Moscow ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
Here, we take a look at the winners:
Jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski
Mr Bialiatski, 60, was one of the leaders of the democracy movement in Belarus in the mid-1980s and has continued to campaign for human rights and civil liberties in the authoritarian country.
He founded the non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Centre Viasna, and won the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the “Alternative Nobel”, in 2020.
The human rights activist was sentenced to three years in prison in 2011 after being convicted on tax evasion charges – accusations which he denies.
He was detained again in 2020 following anti-government protests that year and remains in jail without trial.
The Russian group Memorial
Memorial was founded in the Soviet Union in 1987 to ensure the victims of communist repression would be remembered and was initially led by the famous Soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov.
For over 30 years, the group exposed human rights abuses in the country at the hands of the government.
It has continued to compile information on human rights abuses in Russia and tracked the fate of political prisoners in the country.
Tatyana Glushkova, a board member of the Memorial human rights defence Centre, noted that the award was handed to the group on the day when it once again had to appear in court in Moscow — this time on a case related to its office building in central Moscow.
International Memorial owned the building, but after the group was shut down, it gave the building to one of its affiliate organisations.
Russian authorities are contesting the deal in court, and the prosecutor general’s office filed a motion to invalidate it.
Memorial considers the move an attempt to seize the building and hinder the organisation’s operation.
Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties
The group was founded in 2007 to promote human rights and democracy in Ukraine during a period of turmoil in the country.
It has played a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the group has worked to document Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.
It has continued to play a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.
Following the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, a representative of the group, Volodymyr Yavorskyi, said the award was important for the organisation because “for many years we worked in a country that was invisible”.
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Source: Skynews