Alexey Gorinov nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
An international group of scientists from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom has put forward the initiative to nominate Russian political prisoner Alexei Gorinov for the Nobel Peace Prize. We are grateful to publish their appeal here, in both Russian and English, fully supporting their call.
January 19, 2025
Peace Prize Selection Committee
Norwegian Nobel Institute
Oslo, Norway
Dear Members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We write to nominate Alexei Gorinov, a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience from Russia, for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for his courage and commitment to peace demonstrated in captivity.
Since the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, tens of thousands of Russians have been detained for joining anti-war demonstrations or publicly condemning the invasion. There are now 1,146 known defendants facing criminal cases for their anti-war activity. Many of them are still in jail.
In order to put down the Russian anti-war movement, the authorities have adopted so-called ‘war censorship’ laws - amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offences that criminalise not only criticism of Russia's actions in Ukraine, but also descriptions of events in Ukraine that do not abide by official propaganda dictates. Even words such as ‘war’ and ‘peace’ are banned. Using the classic pacifist slogans ‘No to War’ and ‘Peace to the World’ can trigger arrests. The new laws also stipulate liability up to 15 years of imprisonment for describing war crimes that took place, in particular, in Bucha, Irpen, Mariupol and Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Those who followed their conscience and could not keep silent have ended up in prison, like Alexei Gorinov, or have left Russia.
We are convinced that all Russian citizens serving sentences in Putin's prisons for their openly expressed demand for peace are worthy of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025. Former Moscow municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov, as the most famous and authoritative political prisoner today, best represents this anti-war movement in captivity before the international community.
Alexei Gorinov was one of the first municipal government officials who openly and publicly spoke out against Russia's aggressive actions. For his words, he was imprisoned and sentenced to 7 years in a corrective labor colony under the above-mentioned law on military censorship (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code).
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently considered the case of Alexei Gorinov and concluded that the Russian Federation's laws on military censorship (Articles 207.3 and 280.3 of the Criminal Code) contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Working Group called for the immediate release of any people prosecuted under these articles.
Alexei Gorinov is a former scientist who in the 1990s worked as a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Engineers of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography, and later received a law degree, which he used to defend political activists. Gorinov was one of the pro-democracy defenders of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet building (the White House) during the August 1991 coup attempt and one of the organisers of the Moscow Peace Marches in 2014.
Immediately following the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, many Russians came out to protest the war. Gorinov was among them and was arrested for 15 days. At the time, Gorinov was an elected deputy of the Council of Deputies of Krasnoselsky Municipal District. Only recently released from jail, Gorinov then attended a council meeting on 15 March 2022 that he knew was being recorded and would be posted publicly on the Internet. During a discussion of cultural festivities being organized for the International Day for Protection of Children, he boldly declared:
“Please tell me, why are we talking about a children’s drawing competition dedicated to the Day for Protection of Children? And about organizing dance programs for Victory Day? When children are dying every day — let me tell you, about a hundred children have died in Ukraine. Children are becoming orphans, and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of World War II participants are now thrown into hell by these combat actions on the territory of Ukraine. I believe that all efforts of civil society should be directed towards stopping the war and withdrawing Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine. If the agenda items were devoted to these issues, I would gladly vote for them. In this form, I personally will not vote, but the decision is up to you”
This statement was used as the basis of the criminal case later brought against Gorinov. Gorinov was arrested on 27 April 2022 and was convicted on 8 July 2022. In his Last Word at the trial, he stated:
“Devastation unseen since the Second World War in a European country. Many tens of thousands dead and wounded on both sides. Millions of refugees. At the same time, we are told every hour of every day that this war is for the sake of peace. We are taught that it is right and normal to kill each other... No! It's not normal. It can only seem normal in an inverted picture of the world, which is formed in the head of one - or in the heads of several people who have absolute power, all its levers, and who have separated themselves from civil society, from the people”
From prison, Gorinov defied the authorities by giving interviews to the media - Russian in exile and Western media - where he continued to condemn the war. For these statements, he was punished more severely.
The 63-year-old Gorinov was kept in solitary confinement for 48 days, refused medical care for two months to treat a longstanding medical condition (he had lost part of his lung in 2016), forced to do exercises in the cold and shovel snow despite his illness, tortured with insomnia at night under the pretext of ‘preventing’ escape and suicide, banned from communicating with other prisoners, and prevented from visiting with relatives or receiving letters from the outside. All of this horrific treatment though has not stopped Gorinov from calling for peace by all available means.
Gorinov has been publicly supported by members of the European Parliament and the EU Congress of Municipal and Regional Authorities. Gorinov’s case has also been reported to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and to the United Nations.
The human rights organisation Amnesty International recognised Alexei Gorinov as a prisoner of conscience, and the human rights centre Memorial recognised Gorinov as a political prisoner. In November 2022, Gorinov received the Magnitsky Award for his contribution to the fight for human rights.
In 2024, the prison colony administration brought a new criminal case against Alexei on accusations of publicly justifying terrorism. Alexei’s ‘crime’ occurred during a conversation between Gorinov and a provocateur embedded by the special services who was recording their conversation in the ward of the prison hospital. Gorinov mentioned that the Crimean bridge was a legitimate target for the Ukrainian army and for this, on 29 November 2024, he received another sentence of five years' imprisonment in a strict regime colony.
Once again Alexei Gorinov used his court session as a tribune. Alexei Gorinov's last word before the verdict is a vivid example of judicial anti-war rhetoric and has already been translated into eight languages. We include one powerful passage here:
“In these proceedings in which I have been charged and put on trial for a voiced opinion about the need to seek an end to the war, I have fully expressed my attitude to this abhorrent pursuit of man. All I can say is that violence and aggression only beget violence in return and nothing else. This is the genuine reason for our woes, suffering, our meaningless victims, as well as the destruction of civil and industrial objects, of our homes”.
We are convinced that Gorinov, more than any other Russian public figure, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a man who consciously gave up his freedom because of his inability to remain silent in the face of crimes against humanity, a man who, because of his anti-war convictions, has sacrificed everything he had - his freedom, his property, his health and possibly his life.
We believe that recognition by the world community of the courage and selflessness of participants of the Russian anti-war movement in the person of Alexei Gorinov, aimed at the cause of peace, will give Gorinov and other political prisoners of Putin's regime moral strength to survive in captivity and not break.
Awarding of Alexei Gorinov this Prize will make the voices of anti-war Russians currently in Russian prisons more audible throughout the world and in the future will serve the cause of reconciliation between Russia and Ukraine, will demonstrate that there are Russians who, even enduring prison and death like the heroes of the anti-Hitler resistance, are not silent and demand peace. And this voice - from within the confines of Putin's prison - requires great courage and firmness in its anti-war convictions.
Recognising the courage and dedication of the Russian anti-war movement will also remind people, and especially politicians, in democratic countries that wars are still being fought. People die and suffer - on the battlefield, from the bombing of peaceful cities in Ukraine and in the prisons of authoritarian regimes. Threats to peace will not disappear even with the cessation of hostilities, as Putin's successful aggressive policy may trigger contagion among other dictators. Under such conditions, civil society demands for peace are more important than ever, especially when the word peace is banned.
Please let us know if we can provide more information.
Respectfully submitted,
(Names listed alphabetically)
Michael Alexeev, Full Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Dinissa Duvanova, Professor of International Relations, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, USA
Sergei Erofeev, Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
Timothy Frye, Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy, Columbia University, New York, USA
Scott Gehlbach, Elise and Jack Lipsey Professor, Department of Political Science and Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Theodore Gerber, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
Theocharis Grigoriadis, Professor of Economics, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Henry Hale, Professor of Political Science, George Washington University, Washington, USA
Tomila Lankina, Professor, International Relations Department, London School of Economics, London, UK
Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society, University College London, London, UK
Alexander Libman, Professor of Russian and East European Politics, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Danielle N. Lussier, Associate Professor of Political Science, Grinnell College, Grinnell, USA
Kimberly Marten, Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, USA
Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Professor, National Defense University, Washington, USA
William Pyle, Frederick C. Dirks Professor of International Economics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, USA
Thomas Remington, Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Emory University, Cambridge, USA
John Reuter, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, USA
Michael Rochlitz, Associate Professor Economies of Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Regina Smyth, Professor of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
David Szakonyi, Associate Professor of Political Science, George Washington University, Washington, USA
Joachim Zweynert, Professor of International Political Economy, Witten/Herdecke University, Wittten, Germany.
