Lower house speaker nominates Sir Nicholas Winton for Nobel Peace Prize

The speaker of the lower house Jan Hamáček has nominated Sir Nicholas Winton for the Nobel Peace Prize, the ctk news agency reports citing Parliament sources. Nicholas Winton, a former British diplomat based in Prague, helped 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia escape Nazi concentration camps by securing their departure to Great Britain before the war broke out. Sir Nicolas was nominated for the prize on three successive occasions by the former lower house speaker Miroslava Němcová. The initiative is supported by the Open Gate secondary school whose students have collected thousands of signatures on a petition supporting the nomination.