March 2, 2011; Source: Canada Business Review | Wikileaks is among the record 241 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Most nominees are still not known but the Norwegian lawmaker, Snorre Valen, made the Wikileaks nomination public on his blog.
He wrote, “It would be a crime to ban or oppose the right to publish such information. It should instead be protected, regardless of what we might think of the contents of some (or even all) of the published material. I am proud to nominate Wikileaks for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Sign up for our free newsletters
Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.
Valen goes on to say, "Wikileaks have contributed to the struggle for those very values globally, by exposing (among many other things) corruption, war crimes and torture – sometimes even conducted by allies of Norway . . . And most recently, by disclosing the economic arrangements by the presidential family in Tunisia, Wikileaks have made a small contribution to bringing down a 24-year-lasting dictatorship."
The Internet, which lost the award last year to Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, was also nominated, probably for its role in North African and Middle East protests.—Ruth McCambridge
