Feminist Antiwar Resistance wins 2023 Aachen Peace Prize

The Russian political movement Feminist Antiwar Resistance (FAR), along with Israel’s Human Rights Defenders Fund, has won the 2023 Aachen Peace Prize

As the Aachen Peace Prize website notes, the Feminist Antiwar Resistance formed the day after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and protests the war, patriarchy, authoritarianism, and militarism. The movement also “fights the extremely conservative concepts, prevalent in Russia, of gender and family, as well as discrimination against and repression of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Since its formation, the movement has been at the leading edge of antiwar protest and is now the largest antiwar group in Russia, the prize committee adds. In December 2022, Russia’s Justice Ministry included the Feminist Antiwar Resistance on its list of “foreign agents.”

The prize comes with an award of 2,000 Euros ($2,204). “Closer to September, we’ll discuss what we should do with this money among the widest possible circle of FAR participants,” the activist movement writes.

Israel’s Human Rights Defenders Fund has, since 2011, offered legal consultations to Israeli and Palestinian human rights activists who engage in non-violent protest against the growth of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank territories. The group also fights for Bedouin rights in the Negev, in southern Israel, and supports LGBTQ+ activists and individuals facing police brutality and racism, write the prize organizers.

The Aachen Peace Prize is an international award, given since 1988 to initiatives that promote peace and mutual understanding. The award ceremony traditionally takes place on September 1, World Peace Day, in Aachen, Germany.