Posts Tagged ‘María Corina Machado’

Venezuelan María Corina Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize 2025

October 10, 2025

After persistent speculation about the possibility of the prize going to Donald Trump [see e.g.: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2025/07/24/nobel-peace-prize-choice-between-trump-and-albanese/], it was announced today 10 October that the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, winning more recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

The former opposition presidential candidate was lauded for being a “key, unifying figure” in the once deeply divided opposition to President Nicolás Maduro’s government, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “In the past year, Ms. Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” Watne Frydnes said. Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions. When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.”

Maria Corina Machado is well known in human rights circles having won previously 6 important human rights awards. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/b353c92c-72dd-418a-908c-9f240acab3be. But neither the Nobel Committee nor the mainstream media seem to be aware of this [as happened before e.g. in 2023″, see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/10/06/jailed-iranian-human-rights-defender-narges-mohammadi-wins-nobel-peace-prize-2023/]

The Nobel Prize Committee clarified that “Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.

Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace. She embodies the hope of a different future, one where the fundamental rights of citizens are protected, and their voices are heard. In this future, people will finally be free to live in peace.”

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2025/press-release/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/oct/10/nobel-peace-prize-2025-live-latest-news-updateshttps://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1l80g1qe4gt

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1l80g1qe4gt

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado from Venezuela

https://hrf.org/latest/hrf-celebrates-award-of-the-nobel-peace-prize-to-venezuelas-maria-corina-machado/

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Nobel Peace Prize: choice between Trump and Albanese?

July 24, 2025

No-one will have missed the recent media hype surrounding the opposite candidacies of US President Trump and UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. This blog with its focus on human rights defenders and their awards would be amiss in not taking note, even if the Nobel Prize is foremost a peace prize not necessarly a human rights award. [see also my piece of 2012 https://global.comminit.com/content/nobel-prize-peace-not-necessarily-human-rights]

So, it is not excluded that the ‘making peace at any cost’ considerations will prevail, but my bet is that the Peace Prize Committee will be careful in ignoring the massive support from the world’s human rights community who have massively come out against the Trump administration’s sanctions against Albanese. Human rights should trump ‘peace’ on this occasion.

Nominations for a Nobel Peace Prize for Francesca Albanese are gathering steam. See the links below:

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/statement-report/united-states-america-sanctions-united-nations-special-rapporteur-assault-human

https://www.scmp.com/news/us/diplomacy/article/3318822/trump-says-he-deserves-nobel-peace-prize-not-everyone-agrees

https://english.pnn.ps/news/47558

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/stand_with_francesca_loc/?bMaVgqb&v=168190&cl=22231144183&_checksum=61839b5d6fbd1341d62b426b83a1928933d426ed159791a562f5f8e1ebfcc259&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=168190
Tunisian Nobel Laureates Nominate UN’s Francesca Albanese for Peace Prize

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/un-experts-condemn-us-sanctions-on-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-amid-report-on-corporate-complicity-in-israels-occupation-genocide/

https://www.thearabweekly.com/eu-gingerly-criticises-washingtons-unprecedented-sanctions-un-rapporteur

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bku2skjbgl

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/10/us-imposes-sanctions-on-un-special-rapporteur

Trump’s Nomination for Noble Peace Prize

https://eu.fayobserver.com/story/opinion/2025/08/22/trump-wants-nobel-peace-prize-but-cut-food-abuses-immigrants-has-not-resolved-gaza-or-ukraine/85765058007/

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sk429uepgg

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/donalds-dream-dumped-trump-overlooked-for-2025-nobel-peace-prize-but-why/articleshow/124450001.cms?from=mdr#google_vignette

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Venezuela’s opposition wins top EU human rights award

October 27, 2024
Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado Speaks After Presidential Election
Democratic leader María Corina Machado and exiled presidential candidate Edmundo González won the top human rights award for representing all Venezuelans who are “fighting for the restoration of freedom and democracy.” | Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Getty Images

The European Parliament on Thursday 24 October 2024 awarded the Sakharov Prize to Venezuela’s opposition leaders. Democratic leader María Corina Machado and exiled presidential candidate Edmundo González won the top human rights award for representing all Venezuelans who are “fighting for the restoration of freedom and democracy.”

The Venezuelan opposition leaders were nominated by the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The far-right Patriots group rallied behind them after their original candidate, tech billionaire Elon Musk, failed to make the shortlist for the prestigious prize.

After Venezuela’s elections in late July, in which incumbent socialist President Nicolás Maduro declared victory for another term, the European Union’s foreign service said it would not recognize the results because the government had failed to release supporting voting records from polling stations. 

The authoritarian Maduro’s disputed declaration of victory sparked massive opposition protests and a violent government crackdown that left more than two dozen people dead and nearly 200 injured.

Later, presidential candidate González — who fled to Madrid during the crackdown — was recognized by the European Parliament as the country’s legitimate leader.

For more on the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and its laureates see: https://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/BDE3E41A-8706-42F1-A6C5-ECBBC4CDB449

Two other finalists made the shortlist. One was Gubad Ibadoghlu, a jailed Azerbaijani dissident and critic of the fossil fuel industry nominated by the Greens. The other finalist was a joint nomination of Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun. The groups, who announced a partnership in 2022, were nominated by the Socialists and the Renew group.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-human-rights-award-venezuela-opposition-maria-corina-machado-edmundo-gonzalez-nicolas-maduro/

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20241017IPR24738/maria-corina-machado-and-edmundo-gonzalez-urrutia-awarded-2024-sakharov-prize

see: https://www.lapatilla.com/2024/10/26/at-least-900-people-arrested-after-venezuelas-post-election-protests-are-being-held-in-tocoron-prison/

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Václav Havel Human Rights Prize 2024 to Venezuelan rights defender María Corina Machado.

October 1, 2024
2024 Václav Havel Prize awarded to Venezuelan political figure and rights defender María Corina Machado

The twelfth Václav Havel Human Rights Prize has been awarded to leading Venezuelan political figure and rights defender María Corina Machado.

See https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/7A8B4A4A-0521-AA58-2BF0-DD1B71A25C8D

Ms Machado is a co-founder and former leader of Venezuelan vote-monitoring and citizens’ rights group Súmate, a former member of Venezuela’s National Assembly and currently the National Co-ordinator of the Vente Venezuela political movement. Barred from running in Venezuela’s recent Presidential election, she went into hiding in August 2024, declaring that she feared for her life, her freedom, and that of her fellow citizens.

Opening the award ceremony, PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos pointed out that today, 6 of the 11 previous winners of the Havel Prize are in prison, and urged their immediate release. “These individuals committed only one ‘crime’ – they simply wanted to make their voices heard, to share their vision of a just and free society.”

Making the award to Ms Corina Machado’s daughter Ana, the President underlined that the Council of Europe “stands alongside those who risk their lives to make our societies more democratic and just”.

Ms Corina Machado herself, addressing the Assembly remotely from Venezuela, said she was “deeply moved, honoured and grateful” to be the first Latin American to win the distinction. “I want to dedicate this recognition to the millions of Venezuelans who, every day, embody Havel’s values and ideas – some without even realising it.” Her movement had demonstrated “the victory of democrats over dictatorship” in Venezuela’s recent elections, she said, declaring: “Today our struggle continues, because the truth persists until it prevails.”

The two other shortlisted nominees were Azerbaijani human rights defender and activist Akif Gurbanov, who is currently in pre-trial detention in Baku, and Georgian feminist activist and human rights lawyer Babutsa Pataraia, who was present at the ceremony.

As part of the ceremony, the Assembly was also addressed by Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was being held in detention in Russia when he was awarded the Havel Prize in 2022. He was released in August of this year as part of a prisoner exchange.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/2024-v%C3%A1clav-havel-prize-awarded-to-venezuelan-political-figure-and-rights-defender-mar%C3%ADa-corina-machado

https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-opposition-figure-wins-top-european-rights-prize/a-70363263

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Three shortlisted candidates for the 2024 Václav Havel Prize of the CoE

August 29, 2024

August 27, 2024

The selection panel of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which rewards outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Award.

Meeting in Prague, the panel – made up of independent figures from the world of human rights and chaired by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Theodoros Rousopoulos – decided to shortlist the following three nominees, in alphabetical order:

Akif Gurbanov, Azerbaijan

The nominee is a human rights defender, political activist and active member of the Azerbaijani civil society. He is the co-founder of the Institute of Democratic Initiative (IDI) and of the Third Republic Platform. He was arrested in March 2024 in a wave of arrests targeting journalists and activists in the country.

María Corina Machado, Venezuela

The nominee is a leading political figure in Venezuela engaged in denouncing human rights abuses in her country and defending democracy and the rule of law. She is the co-founder of the Venezuelan volunteer civil organisation ‘Súmate’ for civil and political freedom, rights and citizen participation.

Babutsa Pataraia, Georgia

The nominee is a leading feminist activist and human rights lawyer in Georgia. She is the Director of ‘Sapari’, an NGO focusing on women’s rights and providing support for victims of violence since 2013. She has worked for over a decade to fight against feminicide, sexual violence against women, and sexual harassment.

https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/7A8B4A4A-0521-AA58-2BF0-DD1B71A25C8D

Three candidates shortlisted for the 2024 Václav Havel Prize

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