There’s been another record number of people and organizations nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. By the time the deadline for nominations had passed, fully 376 were in the hands of Nobel officials in Oslo.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee itself never reveals the identities of nominees, but those nominating them are free to do so. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported that among this year’s nominees are Pope Francis, IS terror victim Nadia Murad and the key parties involved in the Colombian peace talks.
The commttee announced that of the 376 candidates, 228 are invididuals and 148 are organizations. The total number of nominees broke the last record set in 2014, when the committee needed to sort through 278 candidates.
According to Peace Prize rules, nominations can be made by members of national assemblies and state governments (such as Members of Parliament, or Congress), judges of international courts, university rectors and professors, directors of peace research and foreign policy institutes, former winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, active and former member of the Nobel Committee and former advisers to the committee.
Heikki Holmås, a Member of Parliament in Norway from the Socialist Left party (SV), told NRK that he had nominated Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez for the prize, along with five victims of the civil war in Colombia. Norway has been actively involved in the peace process between the two sides.
NRK reported that Nadia Murad, a now-22-year-old woman who was held as a sex slave by IS members in Mosul, also has been nominated for the prize, both alone and with the Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who has helped victims of rape and sexual violence for years. Other nominees include US whistleblower Edward Snowden, food researchers Yuan Longping and Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan and the international food research network CGIAR, the Afghan women’s national cycling team and the Aegean Solidarity Movement, made up of Greek Islanders who have helped refugees.
The five-member Nobel Committee had it first meeting on Monday, to start the selection process for the year’s prize, to be announced in October. The prize is always awarded on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, at the Oslo City Hall.
newsinenglish.no staff
