WikiLeaks Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

A Norwegian politician has nominated the whistle blowing website WikiLeaks for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Just days before founder Julian Assange is to face an extradition hearing in London over allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, the website stands to potentially win a prize of $1.6 million (£988,000).

However WikiLeaks has to compete with around 200 other submissions, which can be made by previous winners, members of parliament (globally) as well as some academics.

It is understood that submissions for the Nobel prize closed on 1 February and the Nobel Peace Prize committee is ready to begin its deliberation before actually awarding the prize in October.

Free Speech Champion?

The controversial nomination of Wikileaks was made by 26-year-old Snorre Valen, an MP of Norway’s Socialist Left Party. According to the Financial Times, Valen chose to nominate WikiLeaks for promoting human rights and freedom of speech.

“Liu Xiabao was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom of speech in China,” the FT quoted Valen, citing his website (which remains unavailable on Thursday morning).

“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,” Valen wrote on his website, according to ABC News.

“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.”

WikiLeaks Controversy

There is little doubt that awarding Assange the Nobel prize would be a controversial move by the Nobel Committee. Indeed, many observers believe the sheer amount of controversy the website has created means it is unlikely to succeed.

That said, controversy and the Nobel Prize are not unprecedented bedfellows.

Last year’s award of the prize to Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo drew sharp criticism from China, and the 2009 Nobel Prize award to President Obama just months after he had taken office, was also a controversial decision.

Now it just remains to be seen whether Julian Assange will be at liberty to make the journey to Olso to collect the prize, in the unlikely event that he wins.

Recently British police arrested five people that said were tied to the loosely affiliated hackivist group Anonymous, which conducted DDoS attacks against websites in support of Wikileaks. The FBI meanwhile has issued forty arrest warrants.