RSS Feed
March 4th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
“It would be too much of a burden for her,” said Atle Sveen, a
historian who specialises in the Nobel Peace Prize.
“She’s much too young even though the reasons to honour her are easy to
understand,” he said.
“Linna Ben Mhenni (a Tunisian blogger who was mentioned as a possible
winner in 2011 when she was 27) almost cracked from nerves when she was
nominated. And she (Malala) could become an even bigger target for fanatic
Islamists,” he said.
The 2013 laureate will be announced in early October and awarded, as tradition
dictates, on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the Nobel
Prizes’ founder, philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
The previous record of 241 candidates dated from 2011.
“The trend is upward, not every year but almost,” the head of the
Institute, Geir Lundestad, said.
“This reflects a growing interest in the prize. The nominations come from
the entire world.”
Some of the prize committee’s recent choices have been controversial, which
may have increased the attention it has received.
Last year the prestigious honour went to the European Union, a controversial
choice as the bloc struggles through its worst crisis since its creation.
This year, the Nobel committee could raise the ire of Moscow by honouring
activists fighting for rights and liberties in Russia, which suffered the
worst crackdown since the fall of the Soviet Union according to Human Rights
Watch, or Belarus, often described as Europe’s last dictatorship.
“There are a lot of reasons to turn our attention towards Eastern Europe,
and particularly Russia,” said Harpviken.
“The political developments are very, very worrying and that is something
that can’t have escaped the committee members.”
Russian women activists such as Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Svetlana Gannushkina and
Lilia Shibanova could then be serious candidates, as well as the rights
group Memorial and jailed Belarusian rights activist Ales Belyatski.
Harpviken also mentioned progress being made in the fields of peace or
fundamental human rights in countries like Colombia, Burma and the
Philippines, but suggested it might be hard to single out one laureate in
particular.
Names known to be on the list include Colombian President Jose Manuel Santos
and Burma’s reformist President Thein Sein.
Other candidates are, in no particular order, former US president Bill
Clinton, Coptic Christian Maggie Gobran – dubbed Egypt’s “Mother
Teresa” for her work to help the poor in Cairo’s slums – and Denis
Mukwege, a pioneering doctor who founded a clinic for rape victims in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Source: AFP
Views: 0
Posted in 
