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  • Ales Bialiatski becomes Nobel Peace Prize laureate

    Human rights activist and political prisoner Ales Bialiatski has won the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was also awarded to the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.

    As the Nobel Com­mit­tee explained, “Nobel Peace Prize lau­re­ates rep­re­sent civ­il soci­ety in their coun­tries. They have over the years pro­mot­ed the right to crit­i­cize the gov­ern­ment and defend the fun­da­men­tal rights of cit­i­zens. They have made out­stand­ing efforts to doc­u­ment war crimes, human rights vio­la­tions and abus­es of pow­er. Togeth­er they demon­strate the impor­tance of civ­il soci­ety for peace and democ­ra­cy.”

    Ales Biali­ats­ki is chair­man of the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter.

    “Biali­ats­ki was one of the pio­neers of the demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He ded­i­cat­ed his life to the cause of democ­ra­cy and peace in his coun­try. Biali­ats­ki cre­at­ed the Vias­na human rights orga­ni­za­tion in 1996 in response to the dubi­ous amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion, which gave dic­ta­to­r­i­al pow­ers to the Belaru­sian pres­i­dent,” said the Nobel Com­mit­tee rep­re­sen­ta­tive when intro­duc­ing the lau­re­ates.

    She point­ed out that over time, the orga­ni­za­tion evolved into an insti­tu­tion that doc­u­ments the vio­la­tions of civ­il rights and lib­er­ties in Belarus. Biali­ats­ki was repeat­ed­ly jailed for his activ­i­ties and is now behind bars.

    In 2021, the Peace Prize was award­ed to jour­nal­ists Dmit­ry Mura­tov, edi­tor-in-chief of the Russ­ian news­pa­per Novaya Gaze­ta, and Maria Ressa, founder of the Philip­pine pub­li­ca­tion Rap­pler, for their “efforts to defend free­dom of speech and expres­sion, which is a fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion for democ­ra­cy and last­ing peace.”

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