Nobel Peace Prize: Russian laureate urged to “refuse prize”

Russian co-winner Yan Rachinsky, who shared this year’s Nobel Peace Prize with a Ukrainian and a Belarusian, has been called on by Kremlin officials to refuse the prize, a request he has refused to accept.

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Mr. Putin heads Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest civil rights groups, which was shut down by the government last year. Raczynski said this in an interview with the BBC.

He was thus advised not to accept the price, but “naturally, we did not take this advice into account,” he explained to the British media.

According to the co-winner, even as he faces threats to his safety, his organization’s work remains vital.

“In today’s Russia, no one’s personal safety can be guaranteed,” he told the outlet. “Yes, many were killed. But we know what impunity is.

The Nobel Committee, when announcing the laureates, noted that it was based on the idea that “it is necessary to confront the crimes of the past to prevent new crimes.”

Another award winner, Oleksandra Matvichuk, head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Rights, declined to be interviewed at the same time as Mr Rachinsky, the BBC reported.

“We are now at war and we want to make the voice of Ukrainian human rights defenders concrete,” he told the media.

“So even though we’re doing separate interviews, I’m pretty sure we’re sending and delivering the same messages,” he added.

Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatsky is the third recipient of the award.