Tunisian democracy group wins Nobel Peace Prize
A Tunisian coalition of workers, employers, human rights activists and lawyers won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pulling the country that sparked the Arab Spring back onto a path toward democracy and preventing it from descending into civil war, The Associated Press reported.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy" in the North African country following its 2011 revolution.
"It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war," the committee said in its citation.
The prize is a huge victory for small Tunisia, whose young and still shaky democracy suffered two extremist attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry.
Tunisian protesters sparked uprisings across the Arab world in 2011 that overthrew dictators and upset the status quo. But it is the only country in the region to painstakingly build a democracy, involving a range of political and social forces in dialogue to create a constitution, legislature and democratic institutions.
The National Dialogue Quartet is made up of four key organizations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers, which is the country's bar association.
Kullmann Five said the 8 million Swedish kronor ($960,000) prize was for the quartet as a whole, not the four individual organizations. It wasn't immediately clear who would accept the award on behalf of the quartet at the Dec. 10 award ceremony.
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