There will be no lasting peace in Ukraine until there is justice and human rights, the head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties said Thursday as she arrived in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize with other human rights activists. from Belarus and Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “he thinks he can do exactly what he wants”said Oleksandra Matviichuk to journalists upon arrival at Oslo airport. “There will be no lasting peace in our region until we achieve justice.”
“Human rights and peace are inextricably linked,” Matviichuk said. “A State that systematically violates human rights does not do so only against its own citizens, but against an entire region, an entire world. Russia is a great example of this, ”he said according to the Norwegian news agency. NTB.
The This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was shared by jailed Belarusian rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the laureates “have made a great effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the importance of civil society for peace and democracy.”
The prize was seen as a strong reprimand Putin’s authoritarian government.
“We received this award during a war that started in 2014 and has turned into a bloody and cruel conflict,” Matviichuk said, adding that winning the Nobel Peace Prize “carries great responsibility.”
Jan Rachinsky, president of the International Memorial Board, who also arrived in Oslo on Thursday to receive the award, said the situation in Ukraine reminded him of conditions in Russia during World War II and what his own relatives experienced: lack of electricity. , heat, food.
“Our most important message is that the world must react more strongly to human rights violations,” he told reporters at the airport, according to NTB.
Natallia Pinchuk, the wife of Ales Bialiatski, will receive the prize on her husband’s behalf, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has said. Bialiatski, founder of the non-governmental organization Viasna Center for Human Rights, was detained following the 2020 protests against the re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. He remains in jail without trial and faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
“The investigation is over, now we have to wait for the trial and see what the outcome will be,” Pinchuk said upon arriving in Oslo, NTB wrote.
While the peace prize is awarded on Saturday in the Norwegian capital, the other Nobel prizes are awarded during a ceremony in Stockholm at the same time, in accordance with the wishes of the prize’s founder, Alfred Nobel. The prizes are always awarded on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.
Each prize includes a diploma, a gold medal, and a monetary prize of 10 million crowns (about $967,000) to be distributed among the recipients.
(with information from AP)
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Source-www.infobae.com