Northern Irish peace activist and 1976 Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire has nominated Burmese human rights activist and genocide scholar Maung Zarni for this year’s Nobel Peace prize.
The Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (FORSEA) and the Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC) announced the nomination, stating that Zarni has done “impactful and tireless activism for peace and harmony among human communities [for] over three decades.”
Maguire’s nomination letter to the Nobel committee highlighted Zarni’s work for democracy in Myanmar and for “non-violence campaigners for peace and freedom from Tibet, East Timor [now Timor-Leste], Nigeria, India, Thailand, Palestine and the Jewish diaspora.”
Zarni responded to the nomination, saying that the Nobel Peace Prize had been tarnished by the late Henry Kissinger, who won the prize in 1973. But he added that “as a radical anti-imperialist, I am most proud to be Maguire’s choice.”
Maguire has long been a champion for the Palestinians. She stood up for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu and Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Among her past nominees are Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Assange.
