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WikiLeaks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for Promoting Freedom of Speech
AlterNet
Tue February 1, 2011
Area: London
Whistle-blower website WikiLeaks has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Norwegian politician Snorre Valen, who was behind the nod, tells Reuters. Link. Valen called WikiLeaks one of the century's "most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency" and said that "by disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize."
Can you imagine the sh*tstorm that would ensue if WikiLeaks actually won? The way the government is scrutinizing and dragging through the mud everyone involved with the site, you can bet the Nobel committee would feel major heat if they awarded WikiLeaks the prize. As Reuters puts it:
Awarding WikiLeaks the prize would be likely to provoke criticism of the Nobel Committee, which has courted controversy with its two most recent choices, jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and U.S. President Barack Obama a few months after his election.
No kidding. But it would also be a pretty incredible show of courage by the committee, which has already "stretched Nobel's definition to include human rights, climate activism and even micro-financing" in recent years, angering "Nobel traditionalists." So maybe the committee has it in them to stretch the parameters of the prize even further and acknowledge the role WikiLeaks (and, more broadly, the Internet) has played in changing the world. We'll have to wait and see.
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