The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties.
The winners “represent civil society in their home countries. For many years, they have promoted the right to criticize power and to protect the fundamental rights of citizens,” the committee stated, adding that “they have made an extraordinary effort to document war crimes, human rights violations and abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the importance of civil society for peace and democracy.”
Ales Bialiatski, one of the founders of the movement that emerged in the mid-1980s, established Viasna (Spring) in 1996 in opposition to constitutional amendments that gave the president autocratic powers that prompted large-scale protests.
Viasna provided support to imprisoned protestors, while also exposing (documenting) and denouncing the use of torture by the authorities against political prisoners.
Human rights activists from the former Soviet Union founded Memorial in 1987 in order to ensure that the oppressed victims of the communist regime would never be forgotten.
The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kiev in 2007 to promote human rights and democracy in Ukraine.
