The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners at 11 a.m. local time on Friday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Ales Bialiatski
Ales Bialiatski, 60, is the founder of the Belarusian human rights organisation Viasna and former Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights.
He has campaigned for an independent and democratic Belarus for decades, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
In 2011, Bialiatski was stripped of property and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for his activism, only being released in June 2014.
In July 2021, Bialiatski and others were detained by Belarusian security police as part of the Alexander Lukashenko regime’s new crackdown on the opposition.
That followed Lukashenko’s disputed reelection as president in August 2020, which sparked mass protests, prompting the regime to shut down non-state media organisations and human right groups, including Bialiatski’s Viasna, the IAR news agency reported.
The regime of Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s close ally, has kept Bialiatski behind bars for the past 15 months, according to news outlets.
Bialiatski is awaiting trial on charges of tax avoidance and of making illegal money transfers, and faces a sentence of up to 12 years if convicted, the Reuters news agency reported.
In his last interview with Polish Radio before being detained, Bialiatski said he and his fellow campaigners had started to document the Belarusian regime’s abuses, such as “torture, beatings and lacerations committed during detentions, during transport, at police stations and in prisons, after people have been jailed.”
After announcing the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Norwegian Nobel Committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen called on Belarus to release Bialiatski from prison, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tweeted that the prize for Bialiatski represented “an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom and democracy.”
“All political prisoners must be released without delay,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya was also quoted as saying that she was "proud to see Ales Bialiatski as the winner."
He "has through all his life protected human rights in our country,” she said, as quoted by Reuters.
Tsikhanouskaya added: "He is a prisoner for the second time, this is showing how the regime is constantly persecuting those who fight for human rights in Belarus."
Memorial
Meanwhile, the second 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Memorial, is Russia’s best-known human rights organisation, news outlets reported.
It was co-founded by the prominent Soviet dissident and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Andrei Sakharov.
Established in 1989 to document political repression carried out under the Soviet Union, Memorial was shut down last December as part of a major crackdown on Kremlin critics, Reuters noted.
A Russian court ordered the group to be dissolved, accusing its staff of being “foreign agents,” the politico.eu website reported.
Poland's top officials in December voiced concern and disappointment after Russia's Supreme Court ruled the closure of the organisation.
Polish President Andrzej Duda tweeted at the time that "Poland is grateful to the Memorial organisation, which over the years has contributed to revealing the truth about Soviet crimes against many peoples, including Poles."
The Polish foreign ministry said in a statement that Memorial "is one of Russia’s oldest, best-known and distinguished civil society organisations, whose activists are involved in, among other things, defending human rights and research aimed at documenting Stalinist crimes."
By winning the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, Memorial follows in the footsteps of Russian independent journalist Dmitry Muratov, who shared last year’s award with Maria Ressa of the Philippines.
Memorial’s board member Anke Giesen said on Friday that winning the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize represented recognition of the group’s human rights work and of colleagues who continue to suffer "unspeakable attacks and reprisals" in Putin’s Russia, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties
The third winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize is Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, set up in 2007 as a platform for human rights organisations from former Soviet countries, politico.eu reported.
The group has organised campaigns pressuring Putin’s regime to release political prisoners and has been documenting Russian war crimes during the invasion of Ukraine, as well as fighting corruption, according to news outlets.
Olexandra Matviychuk, who leads the Center for Civil Liberties, responded to the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision in a Facebook post, while travelling on a train from Poland to Kyiv.
Matviychuk said she was “delighted” that her group received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize and congratulated the co-winners, “our friends and partners” from the Russian organisation Memorial and the Belarusian Viasna group, led by Ales Bialiatski, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
2022 Nobel Peace Prize
Announcing the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners on Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said: "The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation that "the Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries" and "have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens."
"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," it added.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee also said that "through their consistent efforts in favour of humanist values, anti-militarism and principles of law, this year’s laureates have revitalised and honoured Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and fraternity between nations – a vision most needed in the world today.”
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 10 million Swedish crowns, or about USD 900,000, will be presented in Oslo on December 10, Reuters reported.
Friday was day 226 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters, politico.eu, nobelpeaceprize.org
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.