The Nobel Committee in Oslo, led by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland, have decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union.
Belarusians' hopes that the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to the prominent human rights activist Ales Bialiatski were not fulfilled.
According to the official website of the Nobel Prize, The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union (EU) "for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".
"The work of the EU represents 'fraternity between nations', and amounts to a form of the 'peace congresses' to which Alfred Nobel refers as criteria for the Peace Prize in his 1895 will,"the press release of the Nobel Committee said.
According to the Norwegian TV channel NRK, the jury of the Novel Committee consisting of five experts has decided to make the disicion unanimously.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2012 has been chosen from amoung 231 nominees - 188 people and 43 organizations. Among the nominees [except Bialiatski] were Russia's human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, a Russian radio station called Echo of Moscow, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, and others.
The awarding ceremony will be held in Oslo on December 10, 2012. This year, the award's amount will be 8 million of Swedish kronas.
We remind that in 2011 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, activist of Liberian women movement for peace, and a Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman.
