The decision to award the Austrian playwright Peter Handke the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature has sparked outrage after he previously denied the Srebrenica genocide.
In 1995, during the Bosnian war, the Serbian army entered the town of Srebrenica and killed over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims over five days, the biggest war crime in Europe since World War II.
Albania’s Foreign Minister Gent Cakaj said on Twitter it was shameful that the award had been given to a “genocide denier”. Albanian Prime Minister wrote: “Never thought would feel to vomit because of a Nobel Prize.”
Handke, who in 2006 attended and spoke at former President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic’s funeral, will receive nine million Swedish kroner ($917,000).
Milosevic was indicted in 1999 for war crimes he committed during the Kosovo war including the genocide of thousands of ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo’s ambassador to the United States has called it a “preposterous and shameful decision” and Kosovan President Hashim Thaci said that “the decision of the Nobel Prize brought immense pain to countless victims.”
Source: MEMO