The Black Lives Matter Movement has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel peace prize by Norwegian MP Petter Eide.
He claims the impact of BLM’s anti-racism rallies has been felt far beyond the United States .
“I find that one of the key challenges we have seen in America, but also in Europe and Asia, is the kind of increasing conflict based on inequality” Eide said, adding that “Black Lives Matter has become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice.“
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The Guardian report: Eide, who has previously nominated human rights activists from Russia and China for the prize, said one other thing that impressed him about the Black Lives Matter movement was the way “they have been able to mobilise people from all groups of society, not just African-Americans, not just oppressed people, it has been a broad movement, in a way which has been different from their predecessors.”
The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal in the US of the man who shot Trayvon Martin. It gained wider recognition in 2014 following protests over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and was the wellspring of a series of global protests in 2020 following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Nominations for the Nobel peace prize are accepted from any politician serving at a national level, and they are allowed just 2,000 words to state their case. The deadline for this year’s submission is 1 February, and by the end of March the committee prepares a shortlist. The winner is chosen in October and the award ceremony is scheduled for 10 December. There were more than 300 nominations for last year’s award, which was ultimately won by the World Food Programme.
