THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
Norwegian parliamentarian Petter Eide has nominated Black Lives Matter movement for the Nobel Peace Prize 2021.
According to him, the movement had forced countries other than the US to face up to racism within their own societies.
“Black Lives Matter has become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice. They have had a tremendous achievement in raising global awareness and consciousness about racial injustice,” he added.
Black Lives Matter is a decentralised political and social movement protesting against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against Black people. The movement emerged in 2013 as a reaction to the acquittal of a White man who had shot and killed 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin a year earlier.
In May 2020, the movement gained momentum after the death of George Floyd in a brutal police action in Minneapolis. A White policeman had knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes ignoring Floyd’s pleas that he couldn’t breathe. The incident sparked a worldwide protest for racial justice.
Confirming the nomination through its official Twitter handle, Black Lives Matter said, “We hold the largest social movement in global history. Today, we have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. People are waking up to our global call: for racial justice and an end to economic injustice, environmental racism, and white supremacy. We’re only getting started”.
https://twitter.com/Blklivesmatter/status/1355311382313447424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1355311382313447424%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.africanews.com%2F2021%2F01%2F30%2Fthe-blacklivesmatter-movement-is-now-a-nobel-peace-prize-nominee%2F
Tens of thousands of people (parliamentarians and ministers of all nationalities, former laureates, some university professors, etc.) are eligible to submit a Nobel Peace Prize nomination before the January 31 deadline.
The Nobel Prize will be awarded at the beginning of October.
The World Food Programme (WFP), a UN agency that provides lifesaving food assistance to millions across the world often in extremely dangerous and hard-to-access conditions, was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Abeeb Alawiye
