The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights defenders from Belarus, Oles Bilyatskyi, the Russian human rights organization "Memorial" and the Ukrainian human rights organization "Center for Civil Liberties".
The Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kyiv in 2007 with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy in Ukraine. After Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Center helped identify and document Russian war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine. In cooperation with international partners, the center plays a pioneering role in bringing perpetrators to justice for crimes.
Oles Bilyatsky is one of the initiators of the democratic movement that arose in Belarus in the mid-1980s. Among other things, he founded the organization "Vyasna" in 1996 in response to constitutional amendments that gave the president dictatorial powers and caused mass demonstrations. From 2011 to 2014, Bilyatsky was in prison. After large-scale demonstrations against the Lukashenko regime in 2020, he was arrested again. He is still under arrest.
The Russian human rights organization "Memorial" was created in 1987. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, "Memorial" became the largest human rights organization in Russia. The organization documented the victims of the Stalin era, as well as collected and systematized information about political oppression and human rights violations in Russia. "Memorial" has become the most authoritative source of information about political prisoners in Russian pre-trial detention centers.