The announcement of this yr’s Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian staff Memorial and the Ukrainian organisation Center for Civil Liberties, has provoked combined opinions amongst global leaders, officers and human rights teams.
In a tweet, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen praised the “outstanding courage of the women and men standing against autocracy”.
But there have been conflicting feelings amongst Ukrainian voices.
Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk described the inclusion of Russia and Belarus as “truly devastating”.
While Anna Trushova, communications supervisor at Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, mentioned they had been extremely joyful to obtain the popularity.
“When we found out the news, we were stupefied. It was a great start to our day. We didn’t expect it. We consider this prize as a respectable recognition of our activity”, she mentioned.
The spouse of winner Ales Bialiatski, a imprisoned Belarusian human rights activist — and founding father of the Viasna Human Rights Centre, Ales Bialiatski mentioned in a Telegram publish that she felt “happy” for the “unexpected” prize which she sees as a “reward for his hard work”.
Belarus’ opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya additionally welcomed the announcement — calling the prize “an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom and democracy”. She advised all political prisoners to be “released without delay”.
“Ales Bialiatski now is in prison for more than one year and he is suffering a lot in punishment cells in prison. But there are thousands of other people who are detained because of their political views”, mentioned Tsikhanouskaya.
A spokesperson for Russia’s Memorial Human Rights Defense Center mentioned that the award serves as proof that the paintings it’s doing is worth it.
“This for us, this is a sign that our work, whether it is recognised by Russian authorities or not, it is important. It is important for the world. It is important for people in Russia,” mentioned board member of the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, Tatyana Glushkova.
Memorial had been awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2009. But Russian government ordered its umbrella organisation Memorial International to near remaining yr — accusing it of breaching the rustic’s overseas agent regulation.
