Nepal\u2019s most prominent crusader for equal rights to sexual minorities, Sunil Babu Pant, is among the record 278 nominees for this year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize. Pant, a former MP and Nepal\u2019s first openly gay politician, is one of the several gay rights activists and organizations nominated alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin who is known for his anti-gay stance. \u201cI didn\u2019t believe the news at first, but when many said \u201cit\u2019s true\u201d and sent emails of congratulations, it made me happy,\u201d Pant wrote to HT from UK where he is taking care of his unwell partner.The 42-year-old founded Blue Diamond Society, Nepal\u2019s biggest organization fighting for rights of lesbians, gays, bi-sexual and transgendered (LGBTs) and is responsible for the 2007 Supreme Court ruling which directed Nepal government to grant equal status to sexual minorities. \u201d<\/p>\n
These days LGBTs in Nepal can get their citizenship certificates, passports, voter identity cards and other important documents by enlisting themselves as third gender instead of calling themselves male or female. According to Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), gay rights activists Igor Kochetkov from Russia, Frank Mugisha of Uganda and International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association are also among the nominees.All of them have been nominated by Norwegian MPs Anette Trettebergstuen and Hakon Haugli.\u201cI am happy that the Norwegian parliamentarians recognized the LGBTI struggle. We promote love and love promotes peace. That\u2019s what the (nomination) means to me and all of us in Nepal,\u201d he wrote.Putin\u2019s name has been proposed for the prize due to his role in preventing the US-led air strike in Syria last year. But a news report says his latest actions on Crimea could scuttle his chances.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis, Pakistan\u2019s young education advocate Malala Yousafzai and US whistleblower Edward Snowden are also among the list of \u201cconfirmed and possible\u201d nominees given by PRIO. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has stated that the number of nominations for this year\u201447 for organizations and 231\u2014is the highest ever. The previous record was 259 for last year.According to Nobel Peace Prize rules the names of nominees and other information about the nominations can\u2019t be revealed for a period of 50 years. The committee advises those proposing the nominations not to reveal names of nominees, but since there is no rule to prevent them from doing so, many names become public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nepal\u2019s most prominent crusader for equal rights to sexual minorities, Sunil Babu Pant, is among the record 278 nominees for this year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize. Pant, a former MP and Nepal\u2019s first openly gay politician, is one of the several gay rights activists and organizations nominated alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin who is known for his anti-gay stance. \u201cI didn\u2019t believe the news at first, but when many said \u201cit\u2019s true\u201d and sent emails of congratulations, it made me happy,\u201d Pant wrote to HT from UK where he is taking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[446,445],"class_list":["post-3041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-world","tag-gay","tag-lesbian"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3042,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions\/3042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}