Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov receive the Nobel Peace Prize | Nobel Peace Prize
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Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a ceremony Ressa was almost prevented from attending due to travel restrictions linked to legal proceedings against her in the Philippines.
Ressa, 58, CEO and co-founder of online news platform Rappler, praised for speaking out against abuse of power and growing authoritarianism under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, faces charges that could lead to around 100 years from prison. Having received the award alongside Muratov in October, she was allowed to attend the ceremony earlier this month by the Philippine appeals court, which ruled that she was not at risk of fleeing.
Muratov, 59, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, which shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, has been described as one of the most prominent advocates of free speech in Russia today. “Novaya Gazeta is today the most independent newspaper in Russia, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee, said at the ceremony at the town hall from Oslo.
Reiss-Andersen declared that Ressa and Muratov were “participants in a war where the written word is their weapon, where the truth is their objective and where every denunciation of abuse of power is a victory”.
The two winners had been “the object of mockery, harassment, threats and violence because of their work,” she added.
Ressa, referring to the restrictions on her movement, said she was at least allowed to attend the ceremony. This had not been the case, she added, for the last working journalist to receive the award in 1935 – Carl von Ossietzky, detained in a Nazi concentration camp.
“By giving this to reporters today, the Nobel Committee signals a similar historic moment, another existential point for democracy,” she said, highlighting the disruptive impact of social media in fueling the spread of disinformation and creating fertile ground for divisive, authoritarian rulers.
âWithout facts you cannot have the truth. Without truth, you cannot be confident. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to face the existential problems of our world: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth, âsaid Ressa during his conference at the ceremony.
“Our greatest need today is to transform this hate and violence, the toxic sludge that runs through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading this hate and unleashing the worst into we.”
Rappler was praised for documenting how social media is used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.
Ressa called in her conference for legislation to hold social media companies to account, and for more overseas development assistance funds to be given to media in southern countries. She also said independent media should be helped to survive, “offering greater protection to journalists and opposing states that target journalists.”
Both Nobel Prize winners paid tribute to journalists murdered, imprisoned or forced into exile for their work. “I want journalists to die old,” Muratov said.
Six journalists working for Novaya Gazeta were killed – Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov and Natalya Estemirova. In the Philippines, a total of 89 journalists have been killed since 1992, she said. This includes journalist Jesus “Jess” Malabanan, 58, who was killed in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday.
Journalism in Russia was going through “a dark valley,” Muratov said. âMore than a hundred journalists, media, human rights defenders and NGOs have recently been labeled ‘foreign agents’. In Russia, it means âenemies of the peopleâ.
âMany of our colleagues have lost their jobs. Some have to leave the country. Some are deprived of the opportunity to lead a normal life for an indefinite period of time. Maybe forever. This has happened in our history before, âhe said.
Muratov condemned the militarist propaganda promoted by the state media and issued a grim warning about the possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine. âIn the minds of some crazy geopoliticians, a war between Russia and Ukraine is no longer something impossible. But I know that wars end with the identification of soldiers and the exchange of prisoners, âhe said. Moscow has raised the alarm by amassing troops and weapons near the Ukrainian border.
Describing journalists as an antidote to tyranny, Muratov added: âYes, we growl and bite. Yes, we have sharp teeth and strong grip. But we are the precondition for progress.
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