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Rabat – Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian activists received the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday in Oslo.
The recipients this year were Ales Bialiatski, Russian organization Memorial, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, as was announced in October.
Bialiatski’s award was received by his wife Natallia Pinchuk, as her husband is currently imprisoned.
Jan Rachinsky and Oleksandra Matviichuk received the award on behalf of Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties respectively.
Rachinsky criticized Russian President Putin’s war in Ukraine when receiving his prize, calling it “insane and criminal.”
He criticized the Russian authorities’ use of anti-fascism to quell opposition and justify the war in Ukraine.
Memorial is a prominent Russian human rights organization, founded in 1987 by Nobel peace prize laureate Andrei Sakharov.
The organization was shut down in 2021 by a court order, but continued operating without a license.
On the other hand, Matviichuk lauded the Ukrainian fight, saying that it is the only way to achieve peace.
The Center for Civil Liberties, which Matviichuk represents, was founded in 2007 and played a big part in documenting abuses during the 2014 Crimea invasion and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Meanwhile, Pinchuk joined the other two award recipients in voicing disapproval of the Russian President on her husband’s behalf, saying he wants to turn Ukraine into a “decadent dictatorship.”
Bialiatski is the fourth laureate to receive the prize from behind bars, having been arrested in 2021 following protests denouncing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s election for a sixth term in office.
Bialiatski’s organization, Viasna, has been known for documenting human rights abuses by the Lukashenko government.
The Norway-based Nobel committee praised the winners for their “outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power.”
The award consists of a monetary prize of $900,000, and is given every year on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
Nobel conceived of the award in 1895 after seeing the reputation that his invention of dynamite had brought to him, with some critics having called him “the merchant of death.”
