Saturday, October 11, 2025 - The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday (Oct 10) awarded to Venezuela's opposition leader and democracy activist Maria Corina Machado, forced to live in hiding in what has become a "brutal" state, the Nobel jury said.
Machado, who has lived in hiding for the past year, was
honoured "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people
of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition
from dictatorship to democracy", said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of
the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.
"I am in shock," the opposition leader could be
heard saying in a video sent to AFP by her press team.
Venezuela has evolved from a relatively democratic and
prosperous country to a "brutal authoritarian state that is now suffering
a humanitarian and economic crisis," Frydnes said.
"The violent machinery of the state is directed against
the country's own citizens. Nearly eight million people have left the
country," he said.
The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means
of "election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment".
In this context, Machado has been a "key, unifying
figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided".
The committee hailed her as "one of the most
extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent
times".
"Despite serious threats against her life, she has
remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions."
Ahead of Venezuela's election in 2024, Machado was the
opposition's presidential candidate, but the regime blocked her candidacy.
She then backed reluctant, little-known ex-diplomat Edmundo
Gonzalez Urrutia as her stand-in.
Machado's Nobel win was a surprise, her name not among those
mentioned as possible laureates in the run-up to Friday's announcement.
US President Donald Trump had made no secret of his desire
to win this year's prize.
Since returning to the White House for his second term in
January, the US leader has repeatedly insisted that he "deserves" the
Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts - a claim observers say is
broadly exaggerated.
But Nobel Prize experts in Oslo had insisted in the run-up
to Friday's announcement that Trump had no chance, noting that his
"America First" policies run counter to the ideals of the Peace Prize
as laid out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will creating the award.
Frydnes insisted the Norwegian Nobel Committee is not swayed
by lobbying campaigns to get the prize.
"In the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think
this committee has seen every type of campaign, media attention," he said.
"We receive thousands and thousands of letters every
year of people wanting to say, what for them, leads to peace."
"We base our decision only on the work and the will of
Alfred Nobel," he added.
Last year, the prestigious prize went to the Japanese
anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb
survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum
of US$1.2 million.
It will be presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo on Dec 10, the anniversary of
the 1896 death of the prizes' creator, Swedish inventor and philanthropist
Alfred Nobel.
The Peace Prize is the only Nobel awarded in Oslo, with the
other disciplines announced in Stockholm.
On Thursday, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to
Laszlo Krasznahorkai, considered by many as Hungary's most important living
author, whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.
The 2025 Nobel season winds up Monday with the economics
prize.
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