Nobel peace prize jury under investigation

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.

The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden's capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel's will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county.

Obama won in 2009, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won in 2010, and last year the award was split between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

For this year's award, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Cuban rights activists Oswaldo Paya and Yoani Sanchez are among the candidates who have been publicly announced by those who nominated them.

The secretive prize committee doesn't discuss nominations — which have to be postmarked by Feb. 1 to be valid — but stresses that being nominated doesn't say anything about a candidate's chances.

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace."

"And it's indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, i.e. the active development of international law and institutions, a new global order where nations safely can drop national armaments," he said

Especially after World War II, the prize committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, has widened the scope of the prize to include environmental, humanitarian and other efforts, he said.
For example, in 2007 the prize went to climate activist Al Gore and the U.N.'s panel on climate change, and in 2009 the committee cited Obama for "extraordinary efforts" to boost international diplomacy.
"Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?" Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor, gave only vague guidelines for the peace prize in his 1895 will, saying it should honor "work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Nobel said the peace prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee, and the other Nobel Prizes by committees in Sweden. The two Scandinavian nations were in a union at the time.

Geir Lundestad, the nonvoting secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, dismissed Heffermehl's claims.

"Fighting climate change is definitely closely related to fraternity between nations. It even concerns the survival of some states," he told AP.
Still, the County Administrative Board decided to sent a letter to the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation, which manages the prize assets, requesting a formal response to the allegations.
"We have no basis to suggest that they haven't managed it properly. But we want to investigate it," Wiman said.

"The prize committee must always adjust its rules to today's society," he said. "But peace work has to be at the core — it can't deviate too much from that," Wiman said.

The peace prize and the Nobel awards in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics are always handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

And the threats continued once Ali Taleb and his family were in Sweden. They received threatening telephone calls from Iraqi numbers and on one occasion Ali Taleb was attacked and stabbed in the street.

 

Journalist to be deported despite death threats.

The Swedish Migration Board has decided to deport a well-known Iraqi journalist and documentary maker back to Iraq. This is despite Ali Taleb having received death threats following his film about the notorious Iraqi paramilitary force, the Mahdi Army.

Ali Taleb

The decision to deport Ali Taleb from Sweden has been strongly criticised by Reporters without Borders. Urban Löfqvist is the head of the Swedish section:
“Our assessment is that Ali entirely fulfils the criteria for asylum, partly because he has been threatened in his home country of Iraq and partly because he has had threats made against him in Sweden. The migration board has been bloody-minded in its interpretation of many of the facts in this case.”
Freelance journalist Ali Taleb fled with his family to Sweden three years ago and sought asylum. In Iraq he had received numerous death threats and his wife had been injured in a bomb attack. The reason was Taleb’s film about the Shia Mahdi militia, which in the past have fought against the US presence in Iraq and are also accused of murder and abuse against Iraqi civilians. After the film was aired on television, several of those who appeared in it were arrested. It was then that family members of those arrested started to threaten Taleb and his family.
“I received several threats, first via phone and then in the post. At first, I thought the purpose was just to scare me, but then I realised that they were out to kill me and my family,” says Taleb.

Swedish Migration Board

Despite this, the Swedish Migration Board judged Ali Taleb’s grounds for asylum to be insufficient and his application was turned down.
“When I received the decision of deportation I was shocked,” says Taleb. "I sought protection in Sweden as a journalist. I would have been better treated in many other countries. How can they treat me like this in Sweden?”
Cecilia Gylling Lindqvist at the Migration Board’s legal unit refuses to comment on any individual cases, but says that the situation in Iraq has improved, even for journalists.
“The security situation in Iraq has improved considerably of late and there are numerous newspapers and TV stations that are blossoming.”
Urban Löfqvist of Reporters without Borders does not agree:
“It is extremely difficult for journalists in Iraq. What we have seen, as an organisation, is that the number of attacks against journalists in the country is once again on the rise.”
Ali Taleb is currently in a migration detention centre outside of Stockholm awaiting deportation back to Iraq. Reporters without Borders believes Taleb’s life will be at risk if he is sent back. Ali Taleb himself says he shall continue the fight for him and his family to remain in Sweden.
“Let them bear the responsibility it they deport me. I intend to fight against it,” he told Swedish Radio International.
Here is the link for the full article, you can listen to the article as it was on radio, pay particular attention to the Swedish authority figure saying that Iraq is considerably safer and TV and newspapers are flourishing, yes the ones owned by the Shia clerks and Militias. Ali Taleb will be murdered if he is sent back to Iraq, do anything that you can, post this article on your Facebook, tweet, text, anything! we need to use our power to stop this kind of madness. I urge all of my friends in Sweden to show their support for  Ali Taleb, because today it is Ali, tomorrow it may be you!

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=4734594

 This is my answer to the authorities in Sweden and Western governments.
Ali Taleb is my friend, when he called me, as a humnan rights campaigner I called everyone that I could think of to help. I said to Ali, "Be strong, this is the face of the western governments, they don't really care about people or Human rights, just about money, power and contracts."
The Swedish government or any other Euorpean state welcomes the murderers, militia men and thieves because they bring with them the millions that they have stolen, an example of that is the Iraqis who moved from Malmo to Stockholm, in Iraq they were not the victims but the agressors, Mahdi militia and Badr brigade that is funded by Iran. Ali knows me very well, for the past twenty years I have tried to find a country to call home, but what I have found is that most of the European countries do not like people who are educated or with opinions, they like the criminals and thieves because they know that these people can be bought, bought by the country's social welfare payments and housing. The puppets in Iraq who have signed this "return" document have forgotten when they themselves were "refugees', now because of  the contracts and the money they are all blinded and have forgotten the humanity they once called for for themselves.