Dubai: The 2022 Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded to the rights activist Ales Bialiatski, Russian human rights organisation Memorial and Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties.
"The Nobel Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens," the Nobel Committee said in its statement.
Bialiatski, currently under detention, is the chairman of the rights group Viasna. He is the former vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights.
Till date 102 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded (1901–2021). The prestigious award has also gone to 25 organisations.
This year’s winners will join the laureates of 2020 and 2021 at the Nobel Week, which will take place in December 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden.
In Geneva, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said Moscow was not concerned about the award. "We don't care about this," Gennady Gatilov told Reuters.
Founded in 1989 to help the victims of political repression during the Soviet Union and their relatives, Memorial campaigns for democracy and civil rights in Russia and former Soviet republics. Its co-founder and first chair was Sakharov, the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Memorial, Russia’s best-known human rights group , was ordered to be dissolved last December for breaking a law requiring certain civil society groups to register as foreign agents.
Memorial board member Anke Giesen said on Friday winning the award was recognition of its human rights work.
The award to Memorial is the second in a row to a Russian, after the prize to journalist Dmitry Muratov last year, shared with Maria Ressa of the Philippines.
The executive director of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, Oleksandra Romantsova, said winning the award was “incredible”.
“It is great, thank you,” she told the secretary of the award committee, Olav Njoelstad, during a phone call that was filmed and broadcast on Norwegian television.
“I am really proud to see Ales Byalyatski as the winner,” she said in a phone interview. “(He) has through all his life protected human rights in our country.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 10 million Swedish crowns, or about $900,000, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
2021: Maria Ressa (Philippines/United States) and Dmitry Muratov (Russia)
2020: The UN World Food Programme (WFP)
2019: Abiy Ahmed Ali (Ethiopia)
2018: Denis Mukwege (DR Congo) and Nadia Murad (Iraq)
2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
2016: Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia)
2015: The National Dialogue Quartet (Tunisia)
2014: Kailash Satyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan)
2013: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
2012: The European Union (EU)
2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Tawakkul Karman (Yemen)
2010: Liu Xiaobo (China)
2009: Barack Obama (United States)
2008: Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)
2007: Al Gore (United States) and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
2006: Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) and the Grameen Bank
2005: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt)
2004: Wangari Maathai (Kenya)
2003: Shirin Ebadi (Iran)
2002: Jimmy Carter (United States)
2001: Kofi Annan (Ghana) and the United Nations
2000: Kim Dae-jung (South Korea)
1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
1998: John Hume and David Trimble (Northern Ireland)
1997: Jody Williams (United States) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor)
1995: Joseph Rotblat (Britain) and the Pugwash movement
1994: Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres (Israel) and Yasser Arafat (Palestine Liberation Organization)
1993: Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (South Africa)
1992: Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Guatemala)
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma)
1990: Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union)
1989: Dalai Lama (Tibet)
1988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez (Costa Rica)
1986: Elie Wiesel (United States)
1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1984: Desmond Tutu (South Africa)
1983: Lech Walesa (Poland)
1982: Alva Myrdal (Sweden) and Alfonso Garcia Robles (Mexico)
1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina)
1979: Mother Teresa (Albania)
1978: Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel)
1977: Amnesty International
1976: Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan (Northern Ireland)
1975: Andrei Sakharov (Soviet Union)
1974: Sean MacBride (Ireland) and Eisaku Sato (Japan)
1973: Henry Kissinger (United States) and Le Duc Tho (Vietnam, declined)
1972: prize not handed out
1971: Willy Brandt (West Germany)
1970: Norman Borlaug (United States)
1969: International Labour Organization (ILO)
1968: Rene Cassin (France)
1967: prize not handed out
1966: prize not handed out
1965: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
1964: Martin Luther King Jr (United States)
1963: International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies
1962: Linus Carl Pauling (United States)
1961: Dag Hammarskjold (Sweden)
1960: Albert Luthuli (South Africa)
1959: Philip Noel-Baker (Britain)
1958: Georges Pire (Belgium)
1957: Lester Pearson (Canada)
1956: prize not handed out
1955: prize not handed out
1954: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
1953: George Marshall (United States)
1952: Albert Schweitzer (France)
1951: Leon Jouhaux (France)
1950: Ralph Bunche (United States)
1949: Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin (Britain)
1948: prize not handed out
1947: Friends Service Council (The Quakers), American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers)
1946: Emily Greene Balch (United States), John Raleigh Mott (United States)
1945: Cordell Hull (United States)
1944: International Committee of the Red Cross
1943: prize not handed out
1942: prize not handed out
1941: prize not handed out
1940: prize not handed out
1939: prize not handed out
1938: Nansen International Office for Refugees
1937: Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (Britain)
1936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas (Argentina)
1935: Carl von Ossietzky (Germany)
1934: Arthur Henderson (Britain)
1933: Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) (Britain)
1932: prize not handed out
1931: Jane Addams (United States) and Nicholas Murray Butler (United States)
1930: Nathan Soderblom (Sweden)
1929: Frank Billings Kellogg (United States)
1928: prize not handed out
1927: Ferdinand Buisson (France) and Ludwig Quidde (Germany)
1926: Aristide Briand (France) and Gustav Stresemann (Germany)
1925: Sir Austen Chamberlain (Britain) and Charles Gates Dawes (United States)
1924: prize not handed out
1923: prize not handed out
1922: Fridtjof Nansen (Norway)
1921: Karl Hjalmar Branting (Sweden) and Christian Lous Lange (Norway)
1920: Leon Victor Auguste Bourgeois (France)
1919: Thomas Woodrow Wilson (United States)
1918: prize not handed out
1917: International Committee of the Red Cross
1916: prize not handed out
1915: prize not handed out
1914: prize not handed out
1913: Henri La Fontaine (Belgium)
1912: Elihu Root (United States)
1911: Tobias Michael Carel Asser (The Netherlands) and Alfred Hermann Fried (Austria-Hungary)
1910: Permanent International Peace Bureau
1909: Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert (Belgium) and Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque (France)
1908: Klas Pontus Arnoldson (Sweden) and Fredrik Bajer (Denmark)
1907: Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italy) and Louis Renault (France)
1906: Theodore Roosevelt (United States)
1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (Austria-Hungary)
1904: Institute of International Law
1903: William Randal Cremer (Britain)
1902: Elie Ducommun (Switzerland) and Charles Albert Gobat (Switzerland)
1901: Jean-Henri Dunant (Switzerland) and Frederic Passy (France)
-- AFP
