Arab Spring focus of speculation for Nobel Peace Prize

THE Arab Spring is the focus of speculation over this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, with an Afghan human rights activist and the European Union as possible outsiders.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee gives no clues ahead of the October 7 announcement, but judging by previous selections the rebellion sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East would appear to tick all the right boxes.

“It would be consistent with their effort to give attention to high-profile and extremely important, potentially breakthrough developments by movements and by people,” said Bates Gill, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The challenge would be to identify a person or group that embodies the non-violent spirit of the revolution and doesn’t turn out to be less deserving of the prestigious$1.5 million (€1.09m) award once the final chapters of the still-unfolding Arab Spring have been written.

“It’s particularly hard in the context of these protests where there hasn’t always been an identifiable leadership,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. His top picks are Egyptian activists Israa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Maher and the April 6 Youth Movement, a pro-democracy Facebook group they co-founded in 2008. They “played an instrumental role in the mobilisation of protests on both the internet and on the street,” Harpviken said.

His second choice is Wael Ghonim, a marketing executive for Google, for re-energising the protests on Cairo’s Tahrir Square after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Harpviken’s third pick is Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni, who started criticising the Tunisian regime before the uprising began in December.

The Tunisian man whose self-immolation set off the protests is not a contender because the Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.

One potential obstacle for an Arab Spring award is the February 1 nomination deadline. Harpviken admitted that he wasn’t sure whether any of his choices would have been nominated by then.

Tunisia’s revolt had peaked but the Egyptian protests were just gathering steam and it was still not clear that the protests would escalate and spread across the region.

Last year the Nobel committee awarded imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, despite strong warnings from China.