Nobel Prizes awarded amid outpour of criticism

ANKARA

The Nobel Prize ceremony was held Tuesday under the shadow of criticism amid a decision to award this year's literature prize to Peter Handke, an Austrian author who denies the Bosnian genocide.

Handke, 77, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature despite his open support to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 at the international tribunal in The Hague on trial for war crimes and genocide.

He claimed that the Muslim Bosniaks in Sarajevo had killed themselves, adding that he never believed that the Serbs had committed genocide in Srebrenica.

At the ceremony on Tuesday, Swedish King Carl Gustaf presented the awards in the capital Stockholm.

The ceremony was followed by a banquet at the nearby Stockholm City Hall where the laureates dined with members of the Swedish royal family.

James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz were presented with the physics award.

In chemistry, the award was shared by John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino.

William Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza won the award for medicine.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the prize in economics.

The 2018 literature award, which was also presented this year, went to Olga Tokarczuk.

Several countries including Turkey boycotted the award ceremony.

Turkish, Albanian, Kosovan and Croatian envoys to Sweden did not attend the ceremony.

Many people took to the streets to protest.

Last week, Gun-Britt Sundstrom, now a former Nobel Literature Prize committee member, announced her resignation over the controversial decision to award Handke.

Sundstrom said in a statement published in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter that the committee defended their choice of Handke saying literature stood above politics and that she did not share that “ideology”.

International journalists and academics who gathered in Stockholm called on the Nobel Prize committee to change their minds about awarding Handke.

Peace Prize

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony held at the Oslo City Hall in Norway’s capital.

Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea, according to the Nobel Committee.

King Harald V of Norway, Queen Sonja, Crown Prince Haakon, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit were also present at the ceremony.