Array
The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, as well as two organizations.
Human rights activist Bialiatski was announced as the winner on Friday by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties were also awarded the prestigious prize.
The selection came as a surprise to many, especially after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were also nominated.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelensky emerged as a hero figure in the world, standing up to the Kremlin strongman and not leaving home soil despite mounting deaths.
Meanwhile, Navalny, Putin’s fiercest opponent, is now locked up in a Russian “torture prison” after accusing Putin of corruption and war crimes.
The prize committee decided to honor Bialiatski, 60, after he famously helped spark the democracy movement that began in Belarus in the 1980s.
He has been behind bars since 2021 on charges of tax evasion widely considered to be politically motivated. He served a previous prison sentence from October 2011 to June 2014 on the same charge.
