Nobel Peace Prize: Human rights champions in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine honoured
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Ales Bialiatski, a human rights activist in prison in Belarus, the Russian campaign group Memorial and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties.
The honour will be widely seen as a rebuke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is celebrating his 70th birthday, and his ally Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, making it one of the most politically contentious in decades.
The award, the first since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, has overtones of the Cold War era, when prominent Soviet dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn won Nobel prizes.
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Berit Reiss-Andersen said that the award was not an anti-Putin prize. Pic: AP
The winners were announced in Oslo by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
She said the judges wanted to honour “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine”.
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She added: “Through their consistent efforts in favour of human values and 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.”
Ms Reiss-Andersen also called on Belarus to release Mr Bialiatski, 60, who is in prison without trial.
However, she insisted the award was not against Mr Putin.
“We always give the prize for something and to something and not against someone,” she said. “This prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday or in any other sense, except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists.
“The attention that Mr Putin has drawn on himself that is relevant in this context is the way a civil society and human rights advocates are being suppressed and that is what we would like to address with this prize.”
Belarusian security police raided offices and homes of lawyers and human rights activists in July last year, detaining Mr Bialiatski and others in a crackdown on opponents of the regime.
The human rights group, Memorial, has been closed in Russia by the Kremlin Pic: AP
The authorities had moved to shut down independent media outlets and human right groups after mass protests the previous August against a presidential election marred by claims it was rigged.
Mr Bialiatski was one of the leaders of the pro-democracy movement in Belarus in the mid 1980s and had continued to campaign for civil liberties.
Ms Reiss-Andersen said the committee was aware in awarding the prize to Mr Bialiatski he may face additional scrutiny from authorities in Belarus.
She added: “But we also have the point of view that the individuals behind these organisations, they have chosen to take a risk and pay a high price and show courage to fight for what they believe in.
“We do pray that this price will not affect him negatively, but we hope it might boost his morale.”
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader of Belarus, said the award would further increase the spotlight on political prisoners and hailed Mr Bialiatski a “famous human rights defender in Belarus and in the world” and a “wonderful person.”
“For sure, it will attract more attention to the humanitarian situation in our country,” she said.
Memorial was founded in the Soviet Union in 1987 to ensure the victims of communist repression would be remembered and has continued to collate details on human rights abuse in Russia, where it has been closed by the Kremlin.
The group said winning the prize was recognition of its work and of colleagues who continue to suffer “unspeakable attacks and reprisals” at home.
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Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties was founded in 2007 to promote human rights and democracy.
Since Russia’s invasion in February, the group has worked to document war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.
“The centr is playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes,” said Ms Reiss-Andersen.
A representative of the organisation, Volodymyr Yavorskyi, said the award was important because “for many years we worked in a country that was invisible”.
“This is a surprise for us, but human rights activity is the main weapon against the war,” he added.
Last year’s peace prize winners have faced a difficult time since receiving the award.
Journalists Dmitry Muratov of Russia and Maria Ressa of the Philippines have been fighting for the survival of their news organisations and defying government efforts to silence them.
They won the prize last year for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
The prizes carry a cash award of around £800,000 and will be presented on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
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The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
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The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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