Press Release
- 6th October 2025 -
Mai-Bente Bonnevie
LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS
Peace Prize 2025
is awarded to:
FRANCESCA ALBANESE
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 passively awaiting a possible future verdict in the international courts.
Francesca Albanese has proven herself to be an exceptionally worthy
and true “Champion for Peace.”
This year's prize consists of a diploma, together with a print by Mai-Bente Bonnevie “Gaza”, shown above, and a cheque for €10,000.
A Prize Ceremony will be held in the near future.
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.
reports on the genocide in gaza:
'Important and powerful' - Raja Shehadeh
- Yanis Varoufakis
Published as Israel’s genocide in Palestine enters its third year, A Moon Will Rise from the Darkness compiles UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s damning reports on Israel’s conduct in Palestine since October 2023.
Lay Down Your Arms
Lay Down Your Arms is a Scandinavian peace organisation established by the late, lifelong peace activist and lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl to encourage work against war and armaments. 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 hope to guide people’s attention to a candidate that stands out in the pursuit of peace in accordance with the will of the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel.
Much 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. In their own ways, they showed us that increasing militarisation is an ominous sign of a mismanaged world. We hold that improved global political transparency, international cooperation and diplomacy, disarming and abolishing weapons and military solutions to conflicts, are the only acceptable ways forward for our world.
Our full website laydownyourarms.no is currently under development.
Lay Down Your Arms’ board
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