The Norwegian Nobel Committee championed resistance to authoritarianism in awarding the 2022 Peace Prize to imprisoned Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski and two human rights organizations: the Russia-based Memorial and the Ukraine-based Center for Civil Liberties.
In a release announcing the award Friday, the committee noted that, collectively, the three winners “have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens. 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.”
Bialiatski is a scholar of Belarussian and Russian literature and a long-time campaigner for human rights. He founded the Viasna Human Rights Center in Minsk and has been imprisoned since 2021 in his home country on charges widely regarded as false by human rights observers.
Memorial is a collective that grew out of an effort to recognize the horrors of the regimes of Josef Stalin and other leaders of the former Soviet Union, and grew into both an educational and research organization as well as a campaigner for human rights in the present. The Russian government formally dissolved Memorial in 2021 and 2022.
The Center for Civil Liberties, begun as a resource for human rights organizations across the former Soviet states, has spent most of the past decade documenting war crimes and other human rights abuses perpetrated as part of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
‘A solidarity award’
Alexander Cherkasov, chairman of the Council of Human Rights Center, a branch of Memorial, told VOA that the joint award is symbolic of solidarity among activists.
“All these organizations are under pressure: Ukraine, fighting a war; Belarus, where almost everyone (from the opposition) was imprisoned; Russia, where the Memorial was liquidated this year,” he said.
“It is an award to a struggling civil society, a solidarity award between civil societies of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine,” he continued. “It signifies Europe's solidarity with the civil societies in the post-Soviet space. This moment of solidarity is critical.”
A clear message
The decision by the Nobel Committee to choose winners from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine could intensify international attention on the regimes led by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The governments headed by both men have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the abolition of civil society organizations and the persecution of human rights activists, like those honored by the committee on Friday.
Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine share borders with each other. Russia, in 2014, invaded and occupied the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and began supporting armed separatists in the country’s Donbas region. Since February, Putin’s army has been orchestrating much broader attacks on Ukraine, which have resulted in untold thousands of dead, both soldiers and civilians, and vast destruction of Ukrainian property.
Belarus, while not directly involved in the war in Ukraine, served as a staging area and then a safe haven for Russian troops who attempted to take the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, early in the war, before being forced back across the border.
Pro-democracy groups praise decision
Groups promoting democracy and civil society reforms praised the Nobel Committee’s choice.
“The choices reflect strong international support of Ukraine’s sovereignty as a democracy, as well as recognition of those who strive for democracy in Russia and Belarus, where it does not currently exist,” Stephen Nix, Eurasia director for the International Republican Institute, said in a statement provided to VOA.
“Each of these awardees has had to confront authoritarian aggression in their own way, and we are thrilled that the Nobel Committee has chosen to amplify their work and their struggles,” Nix said.
Ales Bialiatski
Bialiatski, 60, was born in Russia to parents of Belarusian origin. He is a scholar of Belarusian and Russian literature, and for most of the 1990s was the head of a literary museum in Belarus.
In addition to his scholarly work, Bialiatski became involved in local politics, serving as a member of the Minsk City Council of Deputies in the early 1990s, during the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
After Lukashenko came to power in 1996 and began broad campaigns of public repression, Bialiatski founded the Viasna Human Rights Center in response. The organization worked for democratic reforms, frequently provoking retribution from the Lukashenko regime.
In addition to his current term in prison, Bialiatski was jailed from August 2011 through June 2014, again on charges considered spurious by the international human rights community.
Memorial
Memorial traces its roots to the waning days of the Soviet Union, when dissidents laid the groundwork for the organization that would eventually form in the late 1980s and 1990s. Originally conceived as a way to document and honor the memory of the millions of citizens of the Soviet Union who died under the rule of former leader Josef Stalin, the group eventually grew into two different organizations, Memorial International and the Memorial Human Rights Center.
Memorial International continued the original purpose of the movement, bringing together groups across Russia and the former Soviet Union to organize memorials to those killed and “disappeared” under Stalin and later Soviet rule. The organization provided educational opportunities in various languages, as well as assistance to researchers trying to trace lost family members.
The Memorial Human Rights Center was established as a more present-focused organization, supporting human rights causes around the world, but with a particular focus on Russia and the former Soviet states. Among other things, the group maintained a database of political prisoners and individuals imprisoned for exercising their religious beliefs.
Both groups were critical of the gradual erosion of civil rights in Russia under Putin’s rule, and they became targets of Putin’s government. In a series of court rulings in 2021 and 2022, the government formally dissolved both Memorial International and the Memorial Human Rights Center as legal entities in Russia.
Agence France-Presse quoted Yan Rachinsky, the current head of Memorial Human Rights Center, saying, “The prize gives moral strength” to the movement during difficult times.
After the prize was announced on Friday, a court in Russia ruled that a building in Moscow formerly occupied by the organization would be seized by the state.
Center for Civil Liberties
The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Ukraine in 2007 as a resource for human rights organizations across nine countries of the former Soviet Union. In addition to conducting conferences and educational events to raise awareness on human rights issues, the group lobbied for changes to Ukraine’s laws meant to promote openness and civil society.
The group’s focus expanded after the Euromaidan protests of 2013 and 2014, when it began documenting human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Those efforts grew further still after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and its support for separatist rebels in the country’s Donbas region.
“It was quite unexpected for me and our team to win [the] Nobel Peace Prize,” Oleksandra Matviichuk, chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties, told VOA.
“We consider it not just as an award for our human rights work, the work of the Center for Civil Liberties, that we are doing in Ukraine and the whole region,” she added.
“First of all, this is the award to all Ukrainian people, who are fighting for freedom in this war with Russia and the right to have a democratic choice, for the right to live and build the country, in which the rights of every human are protected, the government is accountable, and the police [do] not disperse peaceful student demonstrations. And we are paying quite a high price for it.”
VOA’s Ukrainian Service and VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this story.
