Alt News Founders Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha Nominated for Nobel Prize

Journalists Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair, co-founders of Indian fact checking website AltNews, have relentlessly been battling misinformation in India.

Zubair

Fact-checkers Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha are among the contenders to win the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, reports Time.

Founder of the fact checking website Alt News, Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair are among the contenders to win the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize according to report by Time magazine.

Journalists Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair, co-founders of Indian fact checking website AltNews, have relentlessly been battling misinformation in India, where the Hindu nationalist BJP party has been accused of frequently stoking discrimination against Muslims. Sinha and Zubair have methodologically debunked rumors and fake news circulating on social media and called out hate speech.

Mr Zubair was arrested in June this year by the Delhi police for a or a meme he tweeted four years ago.

Journalists around the world condemned the arrest and argued it was retribution for his fact-checking work. “It is apparent that AltNews’ alert vigilance was resented by those who use disinformation as a tool to polarize the society and rake nationalist sentiments,” said a June 28 statement from the Editors Guild of India. The Committee to Protect Journalists also called for Zubair’s release—pointing to his arrest as “another low for press freedom in India, where the government has created a hostile and unsafe environment for members of the press reporting on sectarian issues.”

Also Read: Ethical Journalism and Alternate Media

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at 11am local time on Friday in Oslo, Norway.

The Peace Prize is one of six awards established by Swedish chemist (and inventor of dynamite) Alfred Nobel in 1895. The prize is considered the most expansive in its recognition, given that it awards people “who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” The other five recognize contributions in literature, physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and economic sciences.

The winner is selected by the five-person Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is appointed by Norway’s parliament.

There are about 343 candidates – 251 are individuals and 92 are organizations – in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022.

Other Favourites

The other nominees include  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,The World Health Organization, Climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nature broadcaster David Attenborough, Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,Pope Francis, Tuvalu’s foreign minister Simon Kofe, and Myanmar’s National Unity government.

Other contenders

Bookmakers also mention Uyghur activist Ilham Tohti, Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate Nathan Law Kwun-chung, the Kyiv Independent, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).

The Peace Research Institute Oslo—which researches peaceful relations between states, groups, and people—releases an annual personal shortlist for the Peace Prize. This year, their picks for the prize included some other names and groups, such as Indian activist Harsh Mander, the International Court of Justice, Hong Kong activist Agnes Chow Ting, and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG).

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