The list shows winners who did not attend the award ceremony in Oslo; look

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The reasons for this are varied, but most include dissidents from the political regimes then in power being targets of persecution. In other cases, the absence occurred by choice, in order to escape protests and demonstrations to the contrary.

The Iranian activist, against the compulsory wearing of the veil and the death penalty, was detained in the Evin penitentiary, in Tehran, when she received this reward. Her 17-year-old twin sons, exiled in France, received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf and read a speech she sent from her cell. Narges Mohammadi was provisionally released on medical grounds at the end of 2024.

Ales Bialiatski, founder and longtime director of Viasna, Belarus’ leading human rights group, was in prison when he received the Nobel Peace Prize. A year later, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for financing collective actions that, according to authorities, “seriously undermined public order.” During the delivery ceremony, he was represented by his wife.

When the Nobel was awarded to the Chinese dissident, then in prison, the chair was symbolically empty. He could not be represented by his wife, Liu Xia, who was under house arrest, nor by his three brothers, who were not authorized to leave China. The writer and professor of literature was a prominent figure in the Tiananmen (Tiananmen Square) democratic movement of 1989 and an outspoken critic of the communist regime. In May 2017, he was conditionally released after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died in July of the same year.

The dissident from the Burmese regime was under house arrest when she received this award. The ruling military junta allowed her to travel to Oslo, but Suu Kyi preferred to stay for fear of not being able to return. During the ceremony, an empty chair was also placed on the stage and her husband and two children received the award on her behalf.

Although he was free when he received the prize in 1983, Lech Walesa, who clandestinely led the “Solidarnosc” union, decided not to attend the ceremony for fear of not being able to return to Poland. He was represented by his wife and son.

The physicist and dissident received an award for his human rights work, but was unable to attend the awards ceremony because the Soviet Union vetoed his departure from the country. He was represented by his wife, Yelena Bonner, also a human rights activist.

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973)

The 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most controversial in history, was awarded in the absence of its two laureates, awarded for a short-lived truce in Vietnam. Duke Tho rejected the sentence, saying the truce was not respected, while Henry Kissinger did not travel to Oslo for fear of demonstrations.

Carl von Ossietzky (1935)