Swedish Professor Nominates Edward Snowden for Nobel Peace Prize

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize by Swedish professor Stefan Svallfors. In nominating Snowden, Svallfors wrote a letter in which he explained that rewarding Snowden for his “heroic effort at great personal cost” would start to make up for the blunder the Nobel Committee committed when it gave the prize to President Barack Obama.

In the end, however, due to many factors like U.S. interference, Snowden is unlikely to win. But as Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the International Committee of the Russian State Duma, tweeted earlier this week, “His nomination is significant. Many in the West see him as a champion of democracy.”

Nobel or not, Snowden has done the world a significant service and it seems people from disparate parts of the globe are noticing.

Salon:

In a bit of diplomatic jujitsu WikiLeaks suggested that no matter who selects the prize it was a matter of little consequence.

The Nobel Peace prize however, is corrupt. Overseen by Norwegian and Swedish establishments, it has become an instrument of foreign policy.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 15, 2013

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the American soldier on trial for leaking to WikiLeaks, have also been nominated for the prize, the WikiLeaks feed noted. Among other reasons, Snowden is unlikely to win the prize because the nominations are due in February.

Read more

— Posted by Natasha Hakimi.