Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado reacts to the crowd gathered below from a balcony of the Grand Hotel, in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday.
Jonas Summer Henriksen/AP/NTB Scanpix
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OSLO, Norway — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in public for the first time in 11 months Thursday after a daring escape from her homeland when she emerged from the balcony of a hotel in the Norwegian capital and waved to an emotional crowd of supporters cheering the new Nobel laureate.
His appearance in Oslo came hours after his daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on his behalf. Machado was recognized after launching the most serious peaceful challenge in years to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian government.
“Freedom! Freedom!” » chanted the crowd gathered in front of the hotel after seeing Machado. Together they sang the national anthem of Venezuela.
Machado, dressed in jeans and a down jacket, spent several minutes outside the hotel, where she was joined by members of her family and several of her closest associates. She hugged many people in the crowd amid chants of “President! President!”
“I want you all to come back to Venezuela,” Machado said as people held up their cellphones to take photos.
Hiding in Venezuela
Machado had been in hiding since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters at a protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. She was due to attend the awards ceremony on Wednesday in Oslo, where heads of state and her family were among those waiting for her.
Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call posted on the Nobel Prize website that she would not be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” to get her to Oslo.
His daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the award in his place.
“She wants to live in a free Venezuela and she will never give up on that goal,” Sosa said. “That’s why we all know, and I know, that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said at the award ceremony that “María Corina Machado did everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today – a trip in a situation of extreme danger.”
Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call posted on the Nobel website that she would not be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.
“I am very grateful to them, and it is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” she said, before indicating that she was preparing to board a plane.
Flight tracking data shows the plane she arrived on flew to Oslo from Bangor, Maine.
Machado said that “since it is an award for all Venezuelans, I believe they will receive it. And as soon as I arrive, I will be able to hug all my family and my children who I have not seen for two years and so many Venezuelans, Norwegians that I know who share our struggle and our struggle.”
People wait to see Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado outside the Grand Hotel, in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, December 11, 2025.
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Solidarity demonstration
Prominent Latin American figures were present Wednesday in solidarity with Machado, including Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino and Paraguayan President Santiago Peña.
The victory of Machado, 58, for his fight to achieve a democratic transition in his South American country was announced on October 10. Watne Frydnes said that “Venezuela has become a brutal authoritarian state”, and he described Machado as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in recent Latin American history”.
Machado won the opposition primary election and intended to challenge Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred him from running in the election. Retired diplomat Edmundo González took his place.
The period leading up to the July 28, 2024 elections was marked by widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. That figure rose after the country’s National Electoral Council, made up of Maduro loyalists, declared the incumbent president the winner.
González, who sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued an arrest warrant for him, attended Wednesday’s ceremony.
U.N. human rights officials and many independent rights groups have expressed concerns about the situation in Venezuela and called for Maduro to be held accountable for suppressing dissent.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado reacts to the crowd gathered outside the Grand Hotel, in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday.
Jonas Summer Henriksen/AP/NTB Scanpix
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“Fight for freedom”
“More than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged during this long and difficult journey: to have democracy, we must be ready to fight for freedom,” Sosa said while delivering the lecture written for the occasion by his mother.
The speech did not refer to current tensions between Washington and Caracas, as U.S. President Donald Trump continues a military operation in the Caribbean that has killed Venezuelans in international waters and threatens to strike Venezuela. Machado has always supported Trump’s strategy towards Venezuela.
Among the many “heroes of this journey” honored at the conference, Sosa mentioned “leaders from around the world who joined us and championed our cause,” but did not elaborate.
Watne Frydnes said of authoritarian leaders like Maduro that “your power is not permanent. Your violence will not prevail over the people who rise up and resist.”
“Mr Maduro, accept the election result and resign,” he said.
Past winners were unable to attend
According to the prize’s official website, five former Nobel Peace Prize laureates have been detained or imprisoned at the time of the prize, most recently Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 and Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski in 2022.
The others were Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935.
Gustavo Tovar-Arroyo, a Venezuelan human rights activist forced to flee into exile in 2012, said Machado’s supporters “tried their best to get her here like she deserves.” But we knew the risk.”
He added that they are “disappointed that she cannot attend the ceremony, but that is part of what we do when we fight against a dictatorship, a tyranny or a criminal regime. So we are used to it.”
