Context:
Recently, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was 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.
Relevance:
Facts for Prelims
Dimensions of the Article:
- About Nobel Peace Prize
- Who are the Winners?
About Nobel Peace Prize
- The Prize recognizes their contribution for many years, promoting the right to criticize power and protecting the fundamental rights of citizens.
- With the awardees being from Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, an implicit message has been sent about the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
- In 2021, Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.
Who are the Winners?
Belarus’s Ales Bialiatski:
- Ales Bialiatski was one of the initiators of the democracy movement in Belarus in the mid-1980s.”
- Bialiatski is also credited with founding the organisation Viasna (Spring) in 1996 in response to the controversial constitutional amendments that gave the president (Alexander Lukashenko) dictatorial powers.
- Over time, Viasna evolved into a “broad-based human rights organisation that documented and protested against the authorities’ use of torture against political prisoners”.
- In 2020, he was one of the three recipients of the Right Livelihood Award by the Swedish Right Livelihood Foundation, sometimes referred to as the “Alternative Nobel”.
- He is the fourth person to get the Nobel Peace Prize in Jail.
Russian Human Rights Organisation, Memorial:
- The organisation 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, who won the prize in 1954, and human rights advocate Svetlana Gannushkina were among the organisation’s founders.
- It has been described as the largest human rights organisation in Russia, and in the present day, it helped in gathering information on “the political oppression and human rights violations in Russia”.
Ukrainian Human Rights Organization, Center for Civil Liberties:
- The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kyiv in 2007 “for the purpose of advancing human rights and democracy in Ukraine”.
- The Centre describes itself as “one of the leading actors in Ukraine, influencing the formation of public opinion and public policy, supporting the development of civic activism, and actively participating in international networks and solidarity actions to promote human rights”.
- After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Center for Civil Liberties has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian “war crimes” against the Ukrainian civilian population.
-Source: Indian Express
