Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
She won “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the academy said.
“In the past year, Miss Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.
“Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.”
María Corina Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since January. (Reuters: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria)
President Nicolás Maduro’s government routinely targeted its real or perceived opponents ahead of last year’s presidential election.
Ms Machado was set to run against Mr Maduro, but the government disqualified her. Edmundo González took her place. He had never run for office before. The lead-up to the election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations.
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The crackdown on dissent only increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary.
The election results announced by the council sparked protests across the country, to which the government responded with force and ended with more than 20 people dead.
They also prompted an end to diplomatic relations between Venezuela and various foreign countries, including Argentina.
Ms Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since January.
A Venezuelan court issued an arrest warrant for Mr González, who moved to Spain and was granted asylum.
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The committee chose to focus on Venezuela at this time, in a year dominated by US President Donald Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ahead of the announcement, experts on the award had said Mr Trump would not win it as he is dismantling the international world order the Nobel committee cherishes.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.7 million), is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
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Experts say the committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals.
Last year’s award went to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Japanese atomic bombing survivors, who have worked for decades to maintain a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons.
The Peace Prize is the only one of the annual Nobel prizes to be awarded in Oslo, Norway.
Four of the other prizes have already been awarded in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, this week — in medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday.
The winner of the prize in economics will be announced on Monday.
Reuters/AP