Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Tunisia's guardians of democracy
Date
12/10/2015 11:18:58 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Members of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet winner of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize (L-R) Secretary General of the Tunisian General Labour Union Houcine Abbassi President of the National Order of Tunisian Lawyers Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh President of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) Abdessatar Ben Moussa and President of the Tunisian employers union (UTICA) Wided Bouchamaoui sign the guest book inside the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo Norway 09 December 2015. EPA
Oslo:The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Thursday to four organisations that helped save Tunisia's transition to democracy through dialogue a method the laureates are keen to see applied in Syria and Libya.
"Arms can never be a solution not in Syria nor in Libya. There is a need for dialogue" Abdessatar Ben Moussa head of Tunisia's Human Rights League told reporters in Oslo on Wednesday.
"No blood and no fighters."
Along with the Human Rights League the National Dialogue Quartet is made up of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UTGG) the Confederation of Industry Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA) and the Order of Lawyers.
The Quartet will receive the prestigious honour from the hands of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's chairwoman Kaci Kullmann Five at a ceremony scheduled to begin at 1:00 pm (1200 GMT) at Oslo's City Hall in the presence of Norway's King Harald and the Norwegian government.
This year's Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine physics chemistry literature and economics will receive their prizes at a separate ceremony in Stockholm later Thursday.
The Quartet helped save the country's transition to democracy at a sensitive moment in 2013 when the process was in danger of collapsing because of widespread social unrest.
The group orchestrated a lengthy and thorny "national dialogue" between the Islamists of the Ennahda party and their opponents.
AFP