After public criticism, the Nobel Foundation will not invite the ambassadors of Russia, Belarus and Iran to the 2023 prize ceremony
On September 1, the Nobel Foundation announced that it would change the rules for inviting ambassadors to the award ceremony, but this drew criticism
The Nobel Foundation has withdrawn invitations to ambassadors from Russia, Belarus, and Iran to the award ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.
"We have decided to repeat last year's exception to the usual practice of not inviting the ambassadors of Russia, Belarus and Iran to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm," reads a press release on the foundation's website.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called the move a victory for humanism and expressed gratitude to all those who demanded justice.
Earlier, the decision to invite rogue countries caused a flurry of criticism, in particular from Swedish politicians, including the country's prime minister, who then wanted to boycott the award ceremony.
The foundation explained that this decision was based on the fact that the organization considers it important and right to spread the values and ideas that the Nobel Prize stands for as widely as possible. As an example, the foundation cited the year 2022, when the Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists from Russia and Belarus, as well as Ukrainians who documented Russian war crimes.
In 2022, the winners were the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, the Russian Memorial Human Rights Center, and the Belarusian activist and founder of the Vesna Human Rights Center Ales Bialiatski (in March 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Belarus). The awards went to Bilyatsky's wife Natalia Pinchuk, Chairman of the Board of Memorial Jan Raczynski, and Head of the Center for Civil Liberties Oleksandra Matviychuk.
On September 1, the Nobel Foundation announced that it would change the rules for invitations to the Nobel Prize ceremony. In particular, the organizers of the event decided to invite the ambassadors of all countries whose diplomatic missions are represented in Sweden and Norway. Russia and Belarus meet these conditions, but the countries were not directly named in the foundation's statement.
In Ukraine and Sweden, the foundation's statement was criticized.
For example, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said that such a decision would only strengthen the Kremlin's "sense of impunity." Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he was surprised by the foundation's initiative.
In 2022, officials from the Russian Federation and Belarus were not invited to the Nobel Prize ceremony because of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
If you have read this article to the end, we hope that means it was useful for you.
We work to ensure that our journalistic and analytical work is of high quality, and we strive to perform it as competently as possible. This also requires financial independence. Support us for only UAH 196 per month.
Become a Mind subscriber for just USD 5 per month and support the development of independent business journalism!
You can unsubscribe at any time in your LIQPAY account or by sending us an email: [email protected]
