Rappler’s Maria Ressa, Dmitry Muratov win 2021 Nobel Peace Prize

October 11 ------ Journalist Maria Ressa is the first Filipino to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 on Friday, October 8, in an unprecedented recognition of journalism's role in today's world. They won the prize "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

Ressa has been the target of attacks for her media organization's critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte's administration and a key leader in the global fight against disinformation. Ressa is the first Filipino to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In the past, two Filipinos were part of international teams that won the Nobel as a group. Ten Filipinos were with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that won the prize in 2013, while former Ateneo de Manila University president Father Jett Villarin was part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won in 2007 together with former US vice president Al Gore.

The award-giving body also acknowledged Muratov, one of the founders and the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta, for his decades of defending "freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions." The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the newspaper is "the most independent newspaper in Russia," publishing critical articles on "corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and 'troll factories,' to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia."

The two were awarded "for their courageous fight for freedom of expression" in their countries, Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen of the Norwegian Nobel Committee told a news conference. "At the same time, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions," she added. "Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda."

Muratov dedicated his award to six contributors to his Novaya Gazeta newspaper who had been murdered for their work exposing human rights violations and corruption. "Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natasha Estemirova – these are the people who have today won the Nobel Prize," Muratov said, reciting the names of slain reporters and activists whose portraits hang in the newspaper's Moscow headquarters. He is the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev – who himself helped set up Novaya Gazeta with the money he received from winning the award in 1990.

In an interview with Reuters in Manila, Ressa called the prize "a global recognition of the journalist's role in repairing, fixing our broken world". "It's never been as hard to be journalist as it is today," said Ressa, a 35-year veteran journalist. She added: "You don’t really know who you are until you are forced to fight for it."

Source: rappler.com