OSLO // A Tunisian democracy group won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its contributions to the first and most successful Arab Spring movement.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy” in the country following its 2011 revolution.
“It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war,” said Kaci Kullman Five, head of the committee.
“More than anything, the prize is intended as an encouragement to the Tunisian people, who despite major challenges have laid the groundwork for a national fraternity which the Committee hopes will serve as an example to be followed by other countries.”
The prize is a huge victory for Tunisia, whose young and still shaky democracy suffered two extremist attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry.
The National Dialogue Quartet is made up of four key organisations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers.
“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this Quartet, not to the four individual organisations as such,” the committee said.
There were 273 candidates nominated for the 2015 peace prize, five fewer than in 2014.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth eight million Swedish krona (Dh3.58m), will be presented in Oslo on December 10.
The award capped a week of Nobel Prize announcements, with the winners of the medicine, physics, chemistry and literature awards presented earlier in Stockholm.
The economics award — not an original Nobel Prize but created in 1968 — will be announced on Monday.
Recent Nobel Peace Prize winners
2015: Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, Tunisia.
2014: Kailash Satyarthi, India, and Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan.
2013: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
2012: European Union.
2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia, Leymah Gbowee, Liberia, and Tawakkol Karman, Yemen.
2010: Liu Xiaobo, China.
2009: Barack Obama, United States.
2008: Martti Ahtisaari, Finland.
2007: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, United States.
2006: Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh and Grameen Bank, Bangladesh.
2005: International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt.
2004: Wangari Maathai, Kenya.
2003: Shirin Ebadi, Iran.
2002: Jimmy Carter, United States.
2001: United Nations and Kofi Annan, Ghana.
2000: Kim Dae-jung, South Korea.
1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres.
1998: John Hume, United Kingdom, and David Trimble, United Kingdom.
1997: International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams, United States.
1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, East Timor, and Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor.
1995: Joseph Rotblat, United Kingdom, and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
1994: Yasser Arafat, Palestine territories, Shimon Peres, Israel, and Yitzhak Rabin, Israel.
1993: Nelson Mandela, South Africa, and Frederik Willem de Klerk, South Africa.
1992: Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Guatemala.
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar.
1990: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, USSR (now Russia).
1989: The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), China.
1988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez, Costa Rica.
1986: Elie Wiesel, United States.
1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
1984: Desmond Mpilo Tutu, South Africa.
1983: Lech Walesa, Poland.
1982: Alva Myrdal, Sweden, and Alfonso Garcia Robles, Mexico.
1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentina.
* Associated Press and Reuters
