LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS PEACE PRIZE FOR 2025 is awarded Francesca Albanese

Press release October 8, 2025

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories

– as the person who, in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s will, has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and for the abolition or reduction of standing armies as well as for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Francesca Albanese has forcefully and unwaveringly worked against Israel’s full-scale war on the occupied Palestinian territories, in particular Israel´s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

She has confronted Israel’s systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity in a truly global outreach.

Further, she has brought governments, international organisations and people’s groups together to underline the responsibility of the world at large to act and to stop arming, enabling, and profiting from Israel’s ongoing criminal actions.

But first of all, Albanese has lifted up the very core of the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide for all member states to act to prevent and punish those who are perpetrating, complicit in and profiting from these atrocious crimes, and not merely to passively await a possible future verdict in international courts.

Francesca Albanese has proven herself to be an exceptionally worthy and true “Champion for Peace.”

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The Award consists of a diploma with a print by Mai-Bente Bonnevie, titled “Gaza” and a cheque for Euro 10,000. A Prize Ceremony will be held at a later date. Ms Albanese has informed Lay Down Your Arms that she will donate the prize money to a charity that she will announce at a later date. More information at Laydownyourarms.today

Lay Down Your Arms

Lay Down Your Arms is a Scandinavian peace organisation established by the late life-long peace activist and lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl to encourage work against war and armament. Lay Down Your Arms is active in organising peace conferences and highlights ways to wage peace by establishing The Lay Down Your Arms Peace Prize, an annual award to honour a “Champion for Peace.”

We aim to draw people’s attention to a candidate who stands out in her or his pursuit of peace, in line with the will of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Like Alfred Nobel, we have been encouraged by the most prominent peace activist of his time, Countess Bertha von Suttner, who inspired Nobel with her seminal book Lay Down Your Arms. They showed us that an increasing militarisation is an ominous sign of a mismanaged world.

We hold that improved, global political transparency, international cooperation and
diplomacy, disarmament, and the abolition of noth weapons and military solutions to conflicts are the only acceptable ways forward for our world.

The Lay Down Your Arms Board

Erni Friholt
Ola Friholt
Tomas Magnusson, Co-chair
John Y. Jones, Co-Chair
Jan Oberg

Contact Sweden

+46 708293197
tomas.magnusson1984@gmail.com

Contact Norway

+47 93039520
jones@networkers.org