In a piece written on Wednesday, October 5, by Sanya Mansoor for TIME, the magazine listed some of the shortlisted candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022. While there were mostly expected names on the list, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, climate activist Greta Thunberg, Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny etc, there were a couple of names in this list that left most people scratching their heads.
Alleged fact-checkers from India, and founders of propaganda website Alt News are also mentioned by TIME in their list as the shortlisted candidates for the peace prize. Since the only notable accomplishments this year of Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha, the founder of Alt News, are sending a lynch mob towards Nupur Sharma and anyone supporting her, their inclusion left everyone bewildered. Zubair was also arrested for hurting religious sentiments, but even that doesn’t quite explain why TIME thinks they deserve Nobel Peace Prize.
Taking a cue from TIME, Indian leftist outlets like NDTV and The Wire regurgitated that Alt News founders are among the contenders for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. NDTV even went on to confirm that Zubair and Sinha are on the list of 343 candidates in contention for the award this year referencing TIME. The TIME piece itself says that data is taken from Reuters, however, there is no mention of Zubair and Sinha as nominees in Reuters.
1/n As per the @ndtv article @zoo_bear and @free_thinker is nominated for noble peace prize, let’s fact check this:
— Why so serious? (@why_so_sirus) October 5, 2022
Ndtv uses a times article written by Sanya Mansoor in which she says that data is taken from Reuters, Peace Research Institute Oslo
Nobel Committee does not disclose the names of the candidates nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
While NDTV has reported that the names of Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha definitely figure in the list of candidates nominated for the prize this year, the Nobel committee itself does not disclose any names. As per their website itself, any information about the nominations can not be revealed for 50 years after the award.
So called fact checkers enjoying fake news. Here are some facts about Nobel Peace Prize. Now fact checkers will say that we are living in 2072.@ndtv @TIME any shame? pic.twitter.com/3hPE7WuAaj
— Facts (@BefittingFacts) October 5, 2022
Some nominations do become public, like the ones made by Norwegian lawmakers but even in those nominations, the names of Zubair and Sinha do not figure. This made netizens curious how the leftist propaganda outlets were so sure that not only were Alt News founders nominated but that they were among the shortlisted candidates to win the award.
The ‘wishlist’ for Nobel Peace Prize by Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
One place where Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha’s names do figure in relation to the peace prize is the wishlist of the directors of George Soros-funded Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Every year, the directors of Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) shortlist people from around the world that they deem fit to receive the Nobel Prize. Though their list has nothing to do with the actual list of laureates that receive the prize, they have been doing it since 2002.
This year, PRIO’s director Henrik Urdal, who has been on the post since 2017, named the five shortlisted candidates that he thinks would be the best fit to receive the Nobel Prize. Interestingly, even in this list of 5 names, he doesn’t first mention Zubair and Sinha, but another Indian Harsh Mander, and his campaign of ‘Karwan-e-Mohabbat’.
While making a case for Mander, Urdal added as an afterthought that Alt News’s Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha are also worthy candidates for a prize focused on “combating religious extremism and intolerance in India” as they have contributed significantly “to debunking misinformation aimed at vilifying Muslims in India.”
Now this wishlist of the PRIO director, in which the Alt News founders don’t even make the original list of 5 candidates, has been taken as definitive proof that they have been nominated for the prize. In fact, not just nominated, they have been shortlisted to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
While there is no independent way to verify if they have been nominated or not till the Nobel committee releases details in 50 years’ time, leftist portals in India will undoubtedly use this ‘Nobel Peace Prize nominated’ credential to peddle propaganda in their names.
