Key Points
- A jailed Belarusian activist and two human rights organisations are the winners of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize
- Here's what you need to know about them.
Jailed Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, Russian organisation Memorial and Ukrainian group Center for Civil Liberties won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, highlighting the significance of civil society for peace and democracy.
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence in the neighbour countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine," Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said on Thursday (local time).
She called on Belarus to release Mr Byalyatski from prison.
The prize will be seen by many as a condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is celebrating his 70th birthday on Friday, and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, making it one of the most politically contentious in decades.
The award was not an anti-Putin prize, however, Ms Reiss-Andersen said.
"We always give the prize for something and to something and not against someone," she told reporters.
The Peace Prize is the only Nobel awarded in Noway's capital, Oslo, with the other disciplines announced in Stockholm, Sweden.
Earlier on Thursday, French author Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature for "the courage and clinical acuity" in her largely autobiographical books examining personal memory and social inequality.
In explaining its choice, the Swedish Academy said Ms Ernaux, 82, "consistently and from different angles examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class".
Ms Ernaux, the first French woman to win the literature prize, said winning the award was "immense".
Who is Ales Bialiatski?
Ales Bialiatski is the head of Belarus rights group Viasna, and was arrested in July last year on charges of tax evasion, a move that critics of President Alexander Lukashenko saw as a thinly veiled tactic to silence his work.
The 60-year-old's organisation, which translates to "Spring" and was founded in 1996, is Belarus's most prominent rights group, whose work has charted the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of Mr Lukashenko and his security forces.
Established during mass pro-democracy protests several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it sought to help detained protesters and their families.
In the years since, Viasna and Mr Bialiatski have gained prominence as Mr Lukashenko's regime has leaned on more brutal ways of retaining its tight grip on power.
When massive rallies broke out across the country against Mr Lukashenko's claim to a sixth presidential term in August 2020, Viasna meticulously tracked numbers of people detained at protests and after police raids across Belarus in the months afterwards.
Mr Bialiatski was also part of a council of opposition figures — that included previous Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich — tasked with organising new free and fair elections.
But in July 2021, Mr Lukashenko's crackdown came to his doorstep with coordinated raids on a wide range of civil society groups, including Viasna's offices and Mr Bialiatski's home, in a sweep that the group called a "new wave" of repression.
Viasna said last year that apart from Mr Bialiatski, six of its members who were arrested following the elections were in jail.
"The brutal crackdown on Viasna is part of the wider 'purge' of civil society declared by President Alexander Lukashenko," Human Rights Watch said last year.
It was not the first time Mr Bialiatski had run into trouble with security forces in Belarus, which is often described as "Europe's last dictatorship".
In August 2011, he was handed a 4.5-year prison sentence for tax evasion in a move widely seen as politically motivated in the wake of an earlier presidential election claimed by Mr Lukashenko. Mr Bialiatski was released from that prison sentence in 2014, 18 months early.
His activism has been recognised with several awards, mostly from Western institutions, including the Andrei Sakharov Freedom Award. He was previously nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times.
What is Memorial?
Memorial which emerged as a hopeful symbol during Russia's chaotic transition to democracy in the early 1990s, was dissolved late last year, in a sign of the tightening authoritarian tendencies under Mrr Putin.
Memorial established itself as a key pillar in civil society by battling to preserve the memory of victims of Communist repressions and campaigning against rights violations linked to Russia's brutal wars in Chechnya and beyond.
The group maintained a massive archive of Soviet-era crimes and questioned official narratives that glossed over horrors committed under Joseph Stalin, but showed concern for contemporary rights abuses too by bringing legal cases against Russian mercenaries in Syria.
Rights activists in December last year asked Putin to intervene in legal moves to shut it down.
But the Russian leader told his human rights council that Memorial had been advocating on behalf of "terrorist and extremist organisations", clearly signalling his backing for its closure.
Memorial's closure came amid an unprecedented crackdown in Russia that intensified after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on 24 February
"Although Memorial has been closed in Russia, it lives on as an idea that it's right to criticize power and that facts and history matter," Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told news agency Reuters.
What is the Center for Civil Liberties?
The Center for Civil Liberties is an independent Ukrainian human rights organisation, which is also focused on fighting corruption.
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, the Center. founded in 2007, has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population.
"In collaboration with international partners, the center is playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes", the committee said.
What do winners of the Nobel Peace Prize get?
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded in his 1895 will.
"The Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries. They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens," the committee said in its citation.
"They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy."
