Oct. 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Nobel Foundation, in charge of awarding the prestigious awards, reported this Friday that the Iranian ambassador to Sweden, Masoumi Far, has been excluded from the award ceremony, thus joining his Russian and Belarusian counterparts and the party leader far-right Sweden Democrats Jimmie Akesson.
The organization has justified the non-invitation to Iran due to “the seriousness and escalation of the situation” in the country, which has been experiencing a series of citizen mobilizations for more than a month, harshly repressed by the authorities, in protest at the death of the young Masha Amini, who died in police custody.
“For several decades, the starting point of the Nobel Foundation has been to invite all countries with diplomatic representation in Sweden to the Nobel Prize ceremony (…) This year, however, the Nobel Foundation has decided follow the Swedish and European diplomatic policy of not inviting Russia and Belarus due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the body said in a statement.
However, in relation to the exclusion of Ambassador Far, the Nobel Foundation has recognized that, despite the fact that Sweden and other European countries still do not have a concrete “diplomatic policy”, the Iranian representative should not be invited in view of the gravity of the situation.
“The Nobel Prize is based on respect for science, culture, humanism and internationalism. This respect is also the basis for the achievements that are celebrated and highlighted when Nobel Laureates and guests from around the world are invited to the Nobel prize-giving ceremony and banquet on December 10,” the Foundation said in a statement earlier this week.
The exclusion of the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors comes in a year in which the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian NGO Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.
With these winners, the Norwegian Committee wanted to applaud the work of civil society in defense of Human Rights in the three countries, even more so in a context marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
