Iryna Khalip: “Obama has chance for second Nobel Prize”

Barack Obama has a chance to receive a second Nobel Prize in a case when the US Administration would turn attention to Belarus at last.

This week a well-known Belarusian journalist Iryna Khalip was granted prestigious award of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

The journalist was a winner in the nomination Courage in Journalism. The Belarusian journalist won the award alongside with Agnes Taile, a Cameroonian radio journalist, and Jila Baniyaghoob, an Iranian journalist.

“These remarkable journalists have chosen to report the news in three countries where pursuit of the truth puts them at risk for arrest, physical attacks and even death,” said Judy Woodruff, chair of the IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards. “Still, they have consistently, for many years, chosen to risk their lives and livelihoods in pursuing stories that illuminate the lives of people in their countries and enlighten us all.”

The award-giving ceremony is to consist of 2 stages – the first one took place on October 20 in New York, the second one is to take place on October 28 in Los Angeles.

During the ceremony in New York “Waldorf Astoria” hotel, Iryna Khalip delivered a speech.

In an interview to “Radio Svaboda” told about her speech, how the audience reacted, and what the second stage of the ceremony in Los Angeles would look like.

- The most important thing for me was to explain that Belarus is really an Orthodox dictatorship, which by an irony of circumstances appeared in the centre of Europe. And after my speech many American journalists came near me and said: “You know, now we have started thinking how it could have happened so, you are in the centre of Europe really…” Let them think about how it could have happened.

It was very important for me to say that a very dangerous tendency is observed now, a “realpolitik” tendency, which forces West to cooperate with Lukashenka, pretending that everything is alright, and he should join the European community. Maybe they need that to continue the game with Russia, or maybe everybody is tired of continuing struggle for human rights in Belarus. I do not know, but this tendency is really very dangerous. If it continues, everyone would forget about us, journalists who say and write the truth, and about political prisoners. we won’t be needed by anyone. The West would hold talks with Lukashenka, and the both sides would pretend that nothing wrong is going on. It seemed very important for me to explain that this tendency is really very dangerous, and the West should change its stand to a firmer one.

- Iryna, how do you feel, can your speech at the ceremony in New York have wider effect?

- I hope for that very much. If American TV is turned on, everywhere where political talk shows and discussions of world events are taking place, we can hear a lot about the situation in Iran, North Korea, Iraq, but nobody speaks about Belarus. Not because they do not know about that, but because it is not so relevant for the US.

But the situation in Belarus should be relevant. I have said to my colleagues that Obama has a change to receive a second Nobel Prize, like Marie Skłodowska Curie once, in case the new US Administration would turn attention to Belarus after all.

And I think my American colleagues could help me in that. The US audience is very good, very quick to respond. It responds to everything they hear readily. And all my colleagues from CBS, NBC, ABC, Bloomberg promised to do everything possible for the topic of Belarus to be heard more often, louder and clearer.

- What will happen during the second stage of the award-giving ceremony?

- The second stage is a ceremony in Los Angeles. It is completely different thing. In New York mostly press and financial circles representatives gather, while in Los Angeles the ceremony means Hollywood, glamour, red carpets and TV and movie stars.

But I hope I would be able to remind about Belarus in this entourage too. By the way, I would like to say that my friends form Free Theater Mikalai Khalezin and Natalya Kalyada met with Steven Spielberg not long ago. He supports this award, he and his friends (like Jeffrey Katzenberg) put lots of efforts for this topic to be heard been in Hollywood, which seems to care about nothing but glamour.