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.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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