Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitri Muratov, winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, received the award in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, this Friday (10). In addition to defending press freedom, the theme that set the tone for the award, the two took the opportunity to raise flags they defend in their countries of origin.
Ressa, a Filipino-American reporter, reiterated the call to reform social media platforms. The editor of the investigative journalism site Rappler is one of the main voices criticizing the environment of disinformation and violence against professionals in the networks.
“Our greatest need is to fight this hatred and this violence, this toxic sludge that runs through our ecosystem of information,” he said. “What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media; online violence is also violence in the real world,” he continued.
She, who was arrested by Rodrigo Duterte’s government under controversial legislation, recalled her dead or imprisoned colleagues in an attempt to silence press freedom.
A survey published on Thursday (9) showed that 293 journalists are imprisoned around the world, a record number, while 24 were murdered this year.
As she is pursued with other lawsuits in the Philippines, Ressa needed a legal authorization to travel to Oslo.
Russian Dmitri Muratov said that Russian officials are actively promoting an idea of ​​war in the country and that the invasion of Ukraine has become a real possibility.
He criticized the tone of violence that dominates the Kremlin and said that politicians who avoid bloodshed have been seen as weak, while those who threaten the world with war are mistakenly seen as patriots.
“In the minds of some crazy politicians, a war between Russia and Ukraine is no longer impossible,” he said, referring to the possibility of a Russian invasion of the neighboring country, which has been announced by US and Ukrainian intelligence.
Muratov also said that journalism in Russia passes through a “dark valley”, with more than a hundred journalists, media, human rights defenders and NGOs labeled as “foreign agents”, a term used in the Cold War to classify dissidents and today given to critics of the Putin government.
“In Russia, this means ‘enemies of the people’,” said the journalist, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Novaia Gazeta (new newspaper, in Russian), one of the main newspapers opposing the Putin government. He dedicated the award to all investigative journalists and their co-workers who were murdered — among them is Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down on Putin’s birthday in 2006.
The Ressa and Muratov award is the first for journalists since the German Carl von Ossietzky received it in 1935 for revealing his country’s secret postwar rearmament program. As Maria Ressa recalled, however, the German did not get his hands on the prize, as he died in a Nazi concentration camp.
“By giving this award to journalists today, the Nobel committee signals a historic moment, an existential point for democracy,” he said.
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