Tunisia: Human Rights League ‘disavows’ Nobel Peace Prize 

The Secretary General of the Tunisian Human Rights League, Bashir Al-Obeidi, has criticised the national dialogue that saved the country from a civil war for which the organisation and its partners in the “Sponsoring Dialogue Quartet” won the Nobel Peace Prize, Al-Quds Al-Arabi has reported.

“The national dialogue only served anti-democratic parties,” said Al-Obeidi in a radio interview. “There are political parties that act as an obstacle to the democratic transition, such as Ennahda movement and the religious parties that have nothing to do with democracy.” Winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he added, is not a reference.

The Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize to the quartet of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT); the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA); the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (ONAT) and the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH). The quartet mediated in the National Dialogue in Tunisia. This, said the Nobel citation, was a “crucial contribution to building a multi-party democracy after the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.”

The quartet was formed in 2013 and sponsored the National Dialogue, “while the transition to democracy was facing danger from political assassinations and social unrest… at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war.”

READ: Tunisia president excludes political parties from planned national dialogue