The day Russian President Vladimir Putin turns 70 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine reaches 226 daysthe Nobel Foundation and the UN Human Rights Council decided to send him several messages about the lack of respect for civil rights in his country and in Belarus.
The Belarusian Ales Bialiatski and the Russian organizations Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties will receive the Nobel Peace Prize 2022 for his criticism of power and "denunciation of crimes against humanity", The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, announced this Friday.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee "wishes to honor three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in neighboring Belarus, Russia and Ukraine"communicated when announcing the names of the winners.
The Russian organization Memorial, which was liquidated in December 2021 by Putin-led Russia, has spent the last 30 years investigating both the Soviet political repressions until 1991 as to denounce the abuses of human rights in post-Soviet Russia.
Byaliatsky " was one of the initiators of the democratic movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He has dedicated his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country"highlighted the committee.
As for the Center for Civil Liberties, it was founded to promote human rights and democracy in Ukraine, "has become an important source for documenting war crimes" Russians and "plays a pioneering role in holding the guilty to account".
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg congratulated the winners this Friday and stressed that "the right to speak truth to power it is essential for free and open societies.”
Putin’s birthday also coincided with the approval in the UN Human Rights Council of the creation of the figure of an independent expert to investigate and monitor the human rights situation in Russia, where repression has been denounced widespread and the violation of various civil liberties.
According to the UN, the recent Russian departure from the European Court of Human Rights left the citizens of that country without the possibility of resorting to an international instance of justice to achieve respect for their human rights if they are denied in national courts.
PUTIN… BIRTHDAY
Putin’s age of 70 today reached his lowest point since he took power on the last day of the 20th century. Although he assures that his destiny is to direct the designs of the Kremlin and combat the hegemony of the West, has lost popularity and is increasingly isolated, both inside and outside your country.
According to Gennadi Gudkov, a former Russian deputy exiled in Bulgaria, "there are cracks in the Putin system. And it’s not an assumption". "The problem is that any public display of discontent can lead to a prison sentence or the "physical settlement"he points out.
Putin has received some congratulations, including that of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, who has praised his leadership "exceptional" and his "strong will", as well as his campaign in Ukraine.
Cirilo, the highest official of the Russian Orthodox Church, assured that the Russian president was put in power by God, while the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, recalled that the Russian president’s birthday coincides with the feast of the Virgin of the Rosario, of which he said he was sure that "is guiding your steps, your work, your intelligence and sensitivity".
AND THE WAR CONTINUES
The war continues in Ukraine, after completing 226 days of invasion. The kyiv government has recovered 500 square kilometers of territory in the Kherson region so far this October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said tonight.
"Since October 1, more than half a thousand square kilometers of territory and dozens of settlements have been freed from the fake Russian referendum and stabilized only in Kherson region"he said in his usual late-night speech.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, appealed to the Russian troops not to waste time and save Russia from tragedy and its Army from humiliation.
But the Russian bombings and the deaths continue: The death toll from the missile attack launched on Thursday by Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia now rises to eleven.
According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SE), rescue teams removed the bodies of eight people from the rubble today, adding to the three that were recovered on Thursday.
Russian military forces attacked Zaporizhia again today using Iranian drones, according to the complaint by the head of the Regional Military Administration of this city in southern Ukraine, Oleksandr Starukh.
