Norway Nobel Peace Prize winner does not attend award ceremony
This year's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will take place without the actual winner. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado will not be attending today's award ceremony at Oslo City Hall following threats from her country's authoritarian leadership.
10.12.2025, 08:02
SDA
The 58-year-old is unfortunately not currently in Norway and will not be on stage at the award ceremony, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told the radio station NRK. Instead, her daughter will receive the Nobel Prize and also give a speech that her mother has written. He did not know where Machado was.
Commitment to democracy in Venezuela
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in October that Machado, who lives in a secret location within Venezuela, would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. The committee awarded her the prestigious prize "for her tireless commitment to the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her fight for a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy".
The 58-year-old then dedicated the award to "the suffering people of Venezuela" and to US President Donald Trump for his support of the Venezuelan opposition. Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro then indirectly referred to her as a "demonic witch" - he does not usually use her name.
Machado is considered the unifying force of the opposition in Venezuela and a staunch opponent of Maduro, who has ruled authoritatively since 2013. She had sought to run for president in her country in 2023, but was excluded from the election the following year due to alleged irregularities. Critics accuse Maduro of systematic election manipulation.
High personal risk
Machado went into hiding some time ago out of concern for her safety within her country. The Nobel Committee had previously assumed that she would be able to come to Oslo for the award ceremony. She herself had affirmed that she would do everything in her power to be able to travel to the Norwegian capital for the greatest honor of her life.
However, the Venezuelan public prosecutor's office had threatened to consider Machado a fugitive due to various investigations against her if she left the country. She could potentially face arrest, an entry ban or worse if she were to return to Venezuela from Oslo.
"I have been accused of all kinds of crimes, including terrorism," Machado recently said in an NRK interview. "The regime has been very clear. Maduro has said that they will kill me if they catch me."
Prevented Nobel Prize winners an absolute exception
It is extremely rare for Nobel Prize winners, who have been awarded since 1901, to be unable to receive their awards in person. Five Nobel Peace Prize winners in the history of the prize have been prevented from doing so because they were imprisoned in their home countries at the time of their award.
These included the German journalist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935, the Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, the Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo in 2010 and, most recently, the Belarusian lawyer Ales Bjaljazki in 2022 and the Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023.
In 1973, the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho was the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to date to turn down the prize awarded to him of his own free will. He had been awarded the prize together with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and justified his rejection of the prize by stating that there was still no peace in Vietnam.
The Nobel Peace Prize is traditionally awarded on December 10 in a ceremony at Oslo City Hall - the ceremony takes place today at 1.00 pm. On the same day, the anniversary of the death of dynamite inventor and prize donor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), all other Nobel Prizes in the other categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics will be presented later in Stockholm. This year's prizes are endowed with eleven million Swedish kronor (around one million euros) per category.
