In Oslo, Nobel Peace Prize laureates show their determination against Putin

It is a highly symbolic and very geopolitical ceremony which was held this Saturday in Oslo. Last October, in the middle of the war in Ukraine, the Nobel committee wanted to send a strong message by awarding its most prestigious prize to a Belarusian activist, Ales Beliatskyand two Ukrainian and Russian NGOs, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) and Memorial.

Coming from the three main protagonist States of the conflict, all three were crowned for their commitment to “ human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the face of authoritarian forces. The Nobel didn’t dent their pugnacity, even though they didn’t show any signs of outpouring with each other during the award ceremony.

” The people of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world said the head of the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), Oleksandra Matviychuk. ” But peace for a country under attack cannot be achieved by laying down arms. It wouldn’t be peace, but occupation “, did she say. Her voice choking with emotion in her speech at Oslo City Hall adorned with red Siberian flowers, Oleksandra Matviychuk again called for the creation of an international tribunal to judge ” Cheese fries, (his ally, Belarusian leader Alexander) Lukashenko and other war criminals “.

His Russian co-recipient, the president of Memorial, Ian Ratchinski, for his part denounced the “ imperial ambitions » inherited from the USSR which « still bloom today “. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has hijacked the historical meaning of the anti-fascist struggle ” for the benefit of its own political interests “, he said. From now on, ” resisting russia is tantamount to fascism “, he lamented.

Fervent defenders of rights and freedoms in Russia and Belarus

Founded in 1989, Memorial has worked for decades to shed light on the crimes committed under Stalin’s totalitarian regime and to preserve the memory of its victims while collecting information on the violation of freedoms and rights in Russia. The NGO was dissolved at the end of 2021 by the Russian courts, which also ordered the seizure of its offices in Moscow on October 7, the same evening as the Nobel Prize was awarded to the organization.

For eight years, the CCL has been documenting war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. Crimes for which Oleksandra Matviychuk would like to see Vladimir Putin, as well as his Belarusian counterpart and ally Alexander Lukashenko, be brought before international justice.

The third Nobel laureate, Ales Beliatski, father of the human rights NGO Viasna, has been imprisoned since July 2020 pending a trial where he is liable to twelve years in prison for “smuggling”. cash for the opposition to the repressive regime of Alexander Lukashenko. In his absence, it was therefore his wife Natalia Pintchouk who received the award. She repeated some of her husband’s words, including those in which he calls to stand up against ” the international of dictatorships “.

► To listen also: The Nobel Peace Prize 2022 is a “very strong signal sent to Putin and Lukashenko”

(And with AFP)