Belarusian activist and human rights organizations from Russia and Ukraine to share the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize

Belarusian human rights activist Alice Bialiatsky, the Russian Memorial for Human Rights Organization, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, "in recognition of their efforts in documenting human rights violations in their countries," according to what the committee responsible for awarding the award announced.

"This year's Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their countries, and for many years they have promoted the right to criticize authority and protect the basic rights of citizens," the Norwegian Prize Committee said on Friday.

"They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights violations and abuse of power, and together they demonstrate the importance of civil society to peace and democracy," Nobel Prize committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters.

While the award committee notes that awarding the award was not a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday, which falls on Friday;

Andersen described the Russian government as "a totalitarian government that cracks down on human rights activists."

She said the committee wanted to highlight the "way in which civil society and human rights defenders" are being suppressed there.

In the same context, the award committee called on the Belarusian authorities to release the 60-year-old human rights activist Alice Bialiatsky, who helped found the "Viasna" human rights group and has been detained since 2021, and his wife expressed her overwhelming happiness after announcing his victory in the award.

The Russian human rights organization Memorial was established after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 with the aim of studying human rights violations committed in that era.

The organization was dissolved early this year due to pressure exerted by Russia on groups opposed to the 8-month-old Ukraine war.

The prize includes a certificate, a gold medal, and a check worth 10 million kroner (about $912,000) to be shared equally between the winners, and it will be delivered on December 10 in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.