The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize went to the National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia.
The prize was awarded to the group “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”.
The National Dialogue Quartet consists of four organisations in Tunisian civil society - the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA, Union Tunisienne de l’Industrie, du Commerce et de l’Artisanat), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH, La Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (Ordre National des Avocats de Tunisie)
After the Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2010-2011, the Quartet paved the way for a peaceful dialogue between the citizens.
"The Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratisation process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction or religious belief," said a statement released by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
"The National Dialogue Quartet must be given much of the credit for this achievement and for ensuring that the benefits of the Jasmine Revolution have not been lost," the statement added.
Nobel Prize winners, 2015
Svetlana Alexievich Literature
The 67-year-old Belarusian author was awarded the Nobel "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".
| Physiology or Medicine | ||
|---|---|---|
| William C. Campbell | William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won it for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.Their new drug, Avermectin and its derivatives have lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis |
| Satoshi Ōmura | William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won it for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.Their new drug, Avermectin and its derivatives have lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. |
| Youyou Tu | Youyou Tu won it for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy for malaria. Youyou Tu discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from Malaria. |
| Physics | ||
| Arthur McDonald | Mr. McDonald is a professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. The research group Mr. McDonald demonstrated that the neutrinos from the Sun were not disappearing on their way to Earth. Instead they were captured with a different identity when arriving to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. |
| Takaaki Kajita | Takaaki Kajita is from the University of Tokyo. Mr. Kajita discovered that neutrinos from the atmosphere switch between two identities when coming to Japan's Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector. |
| Chemistry | ||
| Tomas Lindahl | Mr. Lindahl is from the Francis Crick Institute. He demonstrated that DNA decays at a rate that ought to have made the development of life on Earth impossible. |
| Aziz Sancar | Mr. Sancar is from the University of North Carolina. He has mapped nucleotide excision repair, the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA. |
| Paul Modrich | Mr. Modrich is from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine. "He demonstrated how the cell corrects errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division. |
