The Wednesday Weigh In: Nobel peace prize edition

assange holding peace prize

WikiLeaks’ Australian founder Julian Assange, pictured above holding an Australian peace award he received in May of this year.

The Nobel Peace Prize nominees for 2011 were recently announced, and there were a few surprises in the bunch. 

241 candidates, have been nominated for this year’s award, which, in addition to Arab Spring superstars such as Wael Ghonim, Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni, and Egyptian Israa Abdel Fattah, includes Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. You’ll also remember him as having been extradited to Sweden for sexual assault allegations.

Recent winners of the award include President Barack Obama and Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo.

Which brings me to this week’s Wednesday Weigh-In:

What do you think about Assange being nominated for the peace prize? Is it a slap in the face to opponents of rape and assault? Or a well-deserved nod to his role in helping to spur the Arab Spring, among other things, through information sharing?

Brooklyn, NY

Lori Adelman started blogging with Feministing in 2008, and now runs partnerships and strategy as a co-Executive Director. She is also the Director of Youth Engagement at Women Deliver, where she promotes meaningful youth engagement in international development efforts, including through running the award-winning Women Deliver Young Leaders Program. Lori was formerly the Director of Global Communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and has also worked at the United Nations Foundation on the Secretary-General's flagship Every Woman Every Child initiative, and at the International Women’s Health Coalition and Human Rights Watch. As a leading voice on women’s rights issues, Lori frequently consults, speaks and publishes on feminism, activism and movement-building. A graduate of Harvard University, Lori has been named to The Root 100 list of the most influential African Americans in the United States, and to Forbes Magazine‘s list of the “30 Under 30” successful mediamakers. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Lori Adelman is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Partnerships.

Read more about Lori

Join the Conversation