The recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are representatives of domestic civil society. They have long supported the freedom to challenge the status quo and defend citizens’ basic rights. They have worked extremely hard to gather evidence of power abuse, war crimes, and violations of human rights. Together, they serve as an example of the importance of civil society to democracy and peace.
One person and two organisations will each receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian human rights activist, Memorial, a Russian human rights organisation, and Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian human rights organisation, are the recipients of this year’s Peace Prize.
Ales Bialiatski
One of the founders of the democracy movement that arose in Belarus in the middle of the 1980s was Ales Bialiatski. He has dedicated his life to advancing democracy and nonviolent growth in his native nation. He established the Viasna (Spring) organisation in 1996, among other things, in opposition to the contentious constitutional changes that gave the president autocratic powers and led to large-scale protests. The demonstrators who were imprisoned and their families received assistance from Viasna. Viasna developed into a multifaceted human rights organisation in the years that followed, documenting and denouncing the use of torture by the government against political detainees.
Ales Bialiatski has been the target of numerous attempts by the government to silence him. He was detained between 2011 and 2014. Following massive protests against the dictatorship in 2020, he was once again arrested. He remains in custody pending a trial. Despite facing extreme personal adversity, Mr Bialiatski has persisted in his fight for democracy and human rights in Belarus.
Memorial
In order to ensure that the victims of the brutality of the communist dictatorship would never be forgotten, human rights advocates in the former Soviet Union founded the human rights organisation Memorial in 1987. Among the founders were Svetlana Gannushkina, an advocate for human rights, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov. The foundation of Memorial is the idea that recognising past crimes is crucial to preventing new ones.
The largest human rights organisation in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union is Memorial. In addition to becoming a repository for information about victims of the Stalinist era, Memorial collected and organised data on political repression and abuses of human rights in Russia. The most reliable source of information about political prisoners held in Russian prisons is Memorial. The organisation has also been leading initiatives to counter militarism, advance human rights, and support governments that uphold the rule of law.
Peace is frequently the next casualty when civil society must make way for authoritarianism and dictatorship. Memorial received and independently verified information about atrocities and war crimes committed against civilians by Russian and pro-Russian forces throughout the Chechen Wars. Natalia Estemirova, the branch manager for Memorial in Chechnya, passed away in 2009 as a result of her job.
Actors in Russia’s civil society have long faced threats, incarceration, disappearances, and murder. Memorial was labelled as a “foreign agent” from the beginning as part of the government’s harassment campaign against it. The decision to forcibly liquidate Memorial and permanently close the documentation centre was made by the authorities in December 2021. In the months that followed, the closures went into force, but Memorial’s operators are adamant about remaining open. Chairman Yan Rachinsky commented on the forced dissolution, saying, “Nobody plans to quit up.”
Center for Civil Liberties
The Center for Civil Liberties was established in Kyiv in 2007 with the goal of promoting democracy and human rights in Ukraine. The centre has made a commitment to advancing civil society in Ukraine and pressuring the authorities to obtain full-fledged democracy. It has aggressively promoted Ukraine’s membership in the International Criminal Court in order to help Ukraine become a state with a strong legal system.
The Center for Civil Liberties has been working to discover and document Russian war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine since Russia invaded that country in February 2022. The centre is taking a leading position in the effort to bring the guilty parties accountable for their crimes, working with international partners.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2022
The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to recognise Ales Bialiatski, Memorial, and the Center for Civil Liberties as three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy, and peaceful coexistence in the neighbouring countries of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine by presenting them with the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022.
This year’s laureates have revived and honoured Alfred Nobel’s ideal of peace and fraternity between nations—a vision that is desperately needed in the modern world—through their constant work in support of humanist values, anti-militarism, and legal principles.
Citation
The Nobel Peace Prize 2022. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Fri. 7 Oct 2022.
