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Nobel Peace Prize 2015 awarded to Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet - as it happened

The alliance won the award for 'its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia' after the Arab Spring
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A Tunisian democracy group has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions to the first and most successful Arab Spring movement. 

The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy" in the North African country following its 2011 revolution. 

"It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war," the committee said in its citation. 

The prize is a huge victory for small Tunisia, whose young and still shaky democracy suffered two extremist attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry. 

The National Dialogue Quartet is made up of four key organizations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. 

In pictures: Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees

In pictures: Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees

  • 1/5 Edward Snowden

    2014: The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been nominated by two Norwegian MPs for the Nobel Peace Prize, meaning the US contractor currently claiming asylum in Russia could be awarded the same prize accepted by President Barak Obama in 2009

  • 2/5 Vladimir Putin

    2013: The Russian President Vladimir Putin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because the former KGB agent “actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet,” according to the advocacy group that nominated him, at least

  • 3/5 Barack Obama

    2009: US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” shortly before launching military airstrikes in Libya. The irony was not lost on Mr Obama it seemed, who during a press conference joked: "[Energy Secretary Steven] Chu's the right guy to do this, he's got a Nobel Prize in physics - he actually deserved his Nobel Prize"

  • 4/5 Henry Kissinger

    1973: Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize for his work on the Paris Peace Accords jointly with Le Duc Tho, who turned the Prize down. The American humourist Tom Lehrer later quipped that Kissinger’s award represented the “death of satire”

  • 5/5 Josef Stalin

    1945: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was nominated for “his efforts to end World War II”. Fellow nominee Vladimir Putin recently said there was no difference between him and Oliver Cromwell, when asked whether he would erect a statue of Stalin in Moscow


"The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this Quartet, not to the four individual organizations as such," the committee said. 

There were 273 candidates nominated for the 2015 peace prize, five fewer than in 2014. 

The award capped a week of Nobel Prize announcements, with the winners of the medicine, physics, chemistry and literature awards presented earlier in Stockholm. 

The economics award - not an original Nobel Prize but created in 1968 - will be announced on Monday.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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