http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/02/02/pope-francis-and-eritrean-catholic-priest-among-nobel-peace-nominees/
Pope Francis and Eritrean Catholic priest among Nobel Peace nominees
By Alister Doyle
February 2, 2015
nobel peace prize oslo pope francis catholic priest eritrea russian
newspaper laureate
(he front of the Nobel medal awarded to the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, in Oslo on December 8,
2010. REUTERS/Berit Roald)
A Russian newspaper critical of President Vladimir Putin is among the
nominations for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Edward Snowden,
Pope Francis and a Catholic priest helping African migrants.
Although the committee has marked the last four 10-year anniversaries
of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima by honouring the fight against
nuclear proliferation, there was little speculation among Nobel
watchers that the trend would continue.
Thousands of people, including all members of parliaments, can make
nominations, which must be postmarked no later than Feb. 1. The $1.2
million award will be announced in October.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute does not publish names of nominees, but
Norwegian experts compile lists.
Pope Francis has been nominated for stressing social justice and care
for the environment, and former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward
Snowden, who leaked details of U.S. electronic surveillance, for
showing how citizens are monitored with few democratic controls.
Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo,
named as his favourite Father Mussie Zerai, a Catholic priest of
Eritrean origin living in Italy who has helped some of the thousands
of African migrants who have risked their lives to cross the
Mediterranean.
“The migration crisis is worsening day by day,” he said.
Harpviken put Novaya Gazeta, a Russian investigative newspaper
critical of Putin, second for its work to expose corruption.
He said such an award “would also more widely speak to the issue of
media freedom” after the Islamist attack on the French satirical
weekly Charlie Hebdo last month in which 12 people were killed.
Harpviken doubted whether Charlie Hebdo itself could win, since many
Muslims oppose the newspaper, known for lampooning Islam and other
religions.
Islamist violence was in any case condemned last year with a prize
shared by Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who campaigns for
girls’ education and survived a 2012 assassination attempt by Taliban
gunmen.
Asle Sveen, a historian and expert on the prize, said the secretive
five-member committee was unlikely to feel bound by the nuclear
anniversary.
The International Atomic Energy Agency won in 2005, ban-the-bomb
scientist Joseph Rotblat in 1995, International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985 and Soviet human rights campaigner
and nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov in 1975.
The last non-nuclear winner in a year ending in a ’5′ was the U.N.
Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which won in 1965.
“I think it is more of a coincidence that you have these intervals,” Sveen said.
Harpviken said one anti-proliferation candidate could be Nihon
Hidankyo, who represents the sufferers of the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
Received on Mon Feb 02 2015 - 15:38:44 EST