Other Nobel Peace laureates have shown the same adherence to high principle and readiness to sacrifice for it: Carl von Ossietzky (winner in 1935) spoke against Hitler’s re-armament of Germany and died in a Hitler prison-hospital Andrei Sakharov (winner in 1975) was sent into internal exile for advocating disarmament and human rights Lech Walesa (1983 winner) accepted prison in Soviet-dominated Poland as the price for defending Polish workers the Dalai Lama received the prize in 1989, during the thirtieth year of a forced exile from his Tibetan homeland Aung Sang Suu Kyi (1991) endured years of house arrest by a Burmese military junta and Liu Xiaobo (2010), like Ossietzky, died in a prison-hospital in the custody of a police state whose leaders he had offended. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace laureate in 1964, wrote from jail, the year before receiving your prize, that “an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” The courageous acts of determined people often are necessary for that. The governments of most nations in the world have signed all three of these documents, yet words on paper often are not enough to bring reality into line with principle.

The rights to freedom, dignity, truth, justice, and rule of law for which our nominees have put their freedom on the line have been set down in United Nations documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). A Peace Prize to Hong Kong prisoners of conscience in 2022 would underscore the highest moral aspirations of humanity. The principles that they act upon undergird human rights and human dignity everywhere, and their voices emerge at a time when human rights and dignity are coming under ever-greater pressure around the world. The five symbolize the hopes not only of millions of Hong Kong people who are worried about the fate of their city but also of countless people on the China mainland who cannot express their views. These five are among about one hundred and fifty others who have been arrested under a National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong in mid-2020 by leaders of the Chinese government in Beijing. We write to nominate Hong Kong prisoners of conscience Chow Hang-tung, Gwyneth Ho, Jimmy Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, and Joshua Wong for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

Dear Members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:

Unfree Speech by Joshua Wong