The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, strongly condemned the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s decision to award this year’s prize to Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado, calling it “insulting and unacceptable.”
CAIR said the committee’s choice to honor Machado – a politician known for her support of Europe’s far-right movements and Israel’s ruling Likud Party – was “an affront” to those around the world who have risked their lives opposing racism, fascism, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
“The Nobel Peace Prize should go to individuals who have shown moral consistency by bravely advocating justice for all people, not to politicians who demand democracy in their own nation while supporting racism, bigotry, and fascism abroad,” CAIR said in a statement from its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
CAIR urged Machado to apologize for and renounce her past remarks and affiliations, including her participation in the far-right Patriots of Europe conference in Madrid earlier this year, where speakers such as Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, and Viktor Orban called for a “new Reconquista” – a reference to the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Jews from Spain in the 15th century.
