Frydnes said the committee had not been in a position to notify Pillay that she had won in advance, “so my message to her would be ‘if you see a Norwegian number calling, please pick up'”.
Shortly afterwards, Pillay reacted to the information by saying “it must be a joke” and thanked those who had gathered to applaud her.
“If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump,” she joked. Last 12 months’s winner, Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado, gave her medal to the US president in January as “recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom”.
Navanethem “Navi” Pillay grew up in South Africa during apartheid as a bus driver’s daughter in a poor Indian part of Durban.
She went on to become the first girl to set up a law follow in Natal Province in 1967, and later the first non-white girl to be appointed to the nation’s high court.
Pillay served as a decide on the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda – centered on the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed – including 4 years as its president.
From 2021-25, she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory – a fact-finding physique established by the UN Human Rights Council to examine alleged violations of worldwide law.
The commission concluded that Israel had dedicated genocidal acts in Gaza and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, had “incited the commission of genocide” in their speeches and statements.
The three-member skilled panel did not communicate formally for the UN and had no legal authority. Israel rejected its findings and accused the three members of the commission of serving as “Hamas proxies”.
The panel had beforehand concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed teams dedicated battle crimes and other grave violations of worldwide law on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage. The same report also accused Israel of battle crimes.
Reacting to Pillay’s award on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it represented a “grotesque weaponisation of an award to legitimise anti-Israel hatred and prejudice”.
It said in a assertion: “Her role in the relentless, politically motivated demonisation of Israel and promotion of the genoLIE speaks volumes.”
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