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The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Peace prize to two journalists comes as countries around the world roll back the rights of reporters.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, themselves considered a contender for the prize, said in its most recent Press Freedom Index that journalism “is totally blocked or seriously impeded in 73 countries and constrained in 59 others.”
Had China allowed free press, the world would have known about the coronavirus outbreak far earlier and the virus may not have been allowed to spiral into a global pandemic, the organization told CNN last year.
The crackdown on journalistic freedom is closely felt at both Rappler and Novaya Gazeta where the Nobel Peace Prize winners work. Reacting to his win, Dmitry Muratov said the prize is a testament to the newspaper’s dedication to free speech and his colleagues who have died fighting for it, Russian state media TASS reported.
“I worked, I was busy. They called me from the Nobel Committee, but I didn’t pick up the phone. I didn’t even have time to read the entire text,” he told TASS. “I’ll tell you this: this is not my merit. This is Novaya Gazeta. These are those who died defending the right of people to freedom of speech.”
Anna Politkovskaya, once a leading voice in Russia reporting on the Chechnya war for Novaya Gazeta, was killed 15 years ago on Thursday.
“I am in shock,” Ressa said during a live broadcast by Rappler on Friday, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, a day before she won the prize, Ressa spoke to CNN about next year’s Philippine elections. “I have covered this country since 1986, I’ve never been the news. But the only reason I’ve become the news is because I refuse to be stamped down, I refuse to stop doing my job the way I should,” she said.
The international legal team representing 2021 Noble Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa applauded the honor given to the journalist and reiterated their “call for the Philippines to immediately drop all the outstanding cases against” her and her organization Rappler.
Amal Clooney and Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, who serve on her legal team, said in a news release that the journalist and the digital media company “face a barrage of criminal and civil proceedings launched in response to their public interest journalism, including a sentence of up to 6 years for libel that is currently on appeal.”
“These prosecutions expose Ms Ressa to a lifetime behind bars,” they said.
More about Ressa: Ressa is the CEO of Rappler, a news outlet critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime. Ressa, also a former CNN bureau chief and TIME Person of the Year, has been engulfed in legal battles in recent years and says she has been targeted because of her news site’s critical reports on Duterte.
Digital media company Rappler has said it is “honored and astounded” by the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to CEO Maria Ressa.
Ressa was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.
“We thank the Nobel for recognizing all journalists both in the Philippines and in the world who continue to shine the light even in the darkest and toughest hours,” the statement added.
Ressa co-founded Rappler in 2012 – a “social news network” for investigative journalism that has since focussed critical attention on the Duterte regime’s murderous anti-drug campaign in the Philippines.
“Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the daily struggle to uphold the truth and who continues to hold the line with us,” Rappler said Friday.
Executive Editor of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Joel Simon congratulated both winners, describing them as “two fearless journalists and symbols of the struggle for press freedom.”
Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta – whose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday – built its reputation as an outpost of the free press in part for its fearless reporting on the conflict in Chechnya, the former breakaway region in southern Russia.
Officially, the prize was cause for official celebration: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov congratulated Muratov, calling him “committed to his ideals,” “talented” and “brave.”
But there is little doubt that the paper was an irritant to the powers that be in Russia and to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. It was the outbreak of a second war in Chechnya, after all, that propelled Putin to the Russian presidency on New Year’s Eve, 1999.
The war in Chechnya has a complicated backstory, but one of the most clear-eyed chroniclers of the whole tragedy was Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Her work focused on the gruesome human-rights abuses committed during the war, particularly those allegedly carried out by the forces of Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan, former Chechen separatists who switched sides to fight on the side of the Russian government.
Politkovskaya endured threats, detention and an apparent poisoning while covering the crisis in the north Caucasus. And on October 7, 2006, she was murdered outside her apartment in Moscow, shot dead at close range.
The day before the award of the Nobel Peace Prize marked the 15th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s assassination. It was a grim reminder that her murder took place on a day of national significance for Russia: Putin’s birthday falls on October 7.
Politkovskaya is not Novaya Gazeta’s only martyr to journalism. Speaking to state media, Muratov remembered other colleagues who had died violently: Igor Domnikov, Yury Shchekochikhin, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov and Natalia Estemirova.
Markelov, a human-rights lawyer, had been investigating human-rights abuses in Chechnya when he was shot and killed in 2009 by a masked gunman. Novaya Gazeta journalist Baburova was also killed in the same incident
Estemirova, a relentless human-rights researcher who also contributed to Novaya Gazeta, was killed the same year. She was abducted from her home in the Chechen capital of Grozny and her body was discovered the same day in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. She had been a prominent critic of the younger Kadyrov, who had emerged as the region’s pro-Kremlin strongman after the assassination of his father in a bomb attack in 2004.
More recently, Novaya Gazeta infuriated Kadyrov and the Chechen leadership by breaking the story of the detention of dozens of gay men by the authorities in the republic. Some of those men – speaking anonymously to CNN for fear of retribution – said they were subject to brutal abuse in custody.
As the details emerged, Novaya Gazeta said “its entire staff” was at risk of reprisals.
Independent journalism has long been a dangerous profession in Russia. But the staff of Novaya Gazeta has continued to dig into some of the Russia’s most politically taboo subjects despite those ever-present threats.
After winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Ressa said: “The journalists will continue doing our jobs, but there are always repercussions if you do a story someone doesn’t like.”
She told Reuters on Friday: “I think what our public has realized is that Rappler will keep doing those stories. Journalists will keep doing those stories. And that’s what I hope will give us more power to do this.”
Watch:
When she received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa joined a small group of women to be granted the prestigious award – numbering just 18.
She was also the first woman to be awarded a Nobel prize in any discipline this year.
That so few women have been awarded the Nobel Committee’s most illustrious prize in its 126-year history has been the source of increasing criticism.
Confronting that criticism in 2017, the Nobel Committee acknowledged a range of problems that have contributed to its poor record.
“We are disappointed looking at the larger perspective that more women have not been awarded,” Göran Hansson, vice chair of the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation, said.
“Part of it is that we go back in time to identify discoveries. We have to wait until they have been verified and validated, before we can award the prize. There was an even larger bias against women then. There were far fewer women scientists if you go back 20 or 30 years.”
Hansson also listed steps the committee would take, starting in 2018, to close the gender gap and decrease potential bias, especially in the nomination process.
After the announcement of the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday, Claes Gustafsson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, told CNN: “We don’t have any direct discussions with other committees about who wins the prize, but we do have discussions about how to support and increase women and it’s also important to support geographic diversity.”
Of the 18 women awarded the Peace Prize, Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian writer and leading figure in the pacifist movement in Europe, was the first. She received the prize in 1905. It wasn’t until 26 years later that the next woman was awarded. Jane Addams, a pioneering social worker in the United States, who championed the rights of women and children, was granted the prize jointly with Nicholas Murray Butler, who helped establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in 1931.
Other women to have been recognized with the Nobel Prize include Mother Teresa in 1979, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee in 2011, Pakistani advocate for girls’ education Malala Yousafzai in 2014 and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad in 2018.
Congratulations for journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov are pouring in from press freedom organizations around the world after the pair won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) congratulated the recipients in a tweet, adding that this news “sheds light on the emergency to defend those who work to provide us with independent and reliable information. Journalism is under threats as shown by the World Press Freedom.”
Anti-corruption organization Transparency International said the prize recognizes “investigative journalists’ crucial role in the betterment of our societies!”
The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists also chimed in:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee phone called journalist Maria Ressa ahead of a formal announcement to inform her that she was going to be one of the 2021 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
As she heard the news, she said, “Oh my god!”
When asked if she had any immediate reaction to share, she said, “I’m speechless! Thank you so very much.”
She was told that she would be sharing the prize with another candidate but was not told who it would be.
Hear the moment:
Dmitry Muratov, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, said the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded is a testament to the newspaper’s dedication to free speech and his colleagues who have died fighting for it, Russian state media TASS reports.
Anna Politkovskaya, once a leading voice in Russia reporting on the Chechnya war for Novaya Gazeta, was killed 15 years ago on Thursday. Muratov and other former colleagues commemorated Politkovskaya in a ceremony outside the newspaper’s offices in Moscow.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Politkovskaya repeatedly received death threats and was attacked for her investigative reporting, including in a purported poisoning attempt. She was renowned for her critical coverage of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Politkovskaya was 48 when she was shot dead at her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006, on Putin’s 54th birthday.
Fifteen years after her death, her assessment of independent journalism and media in Russia remains pertinent.
“If you want to go on working as a journalist, it’s total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial – whatever our special services, Putin’s guard dogs, see fit,” she wrote in her 2004 book “Putin’s Russia.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize for two journalists comes at a time when press freedoms around the world are under threat.
For five straight years, the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists has found that at least 250 journalists were jailed globally for their work.
And in its annual Press Freedom Index in April, Reporters Without Borders sounded the alarm over the dramatic deterioration in access to information, showing that journalism was completely blocked or seriously impeded in 73 countries and constrained in 59 others – 73% of 180 countries ranked by the organisation.
Maria Ressa’s native Philippines ranked 138 on the index for its government’s role in silencing critics. Reporters Without Borders cited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated attacks on Ressa, describing a “grotesque judicial harassment campaign” against Ressa and her news website Rappler.
In Russia, ranked 150 on the index, Dmitry Muratov and other journalists face what Reporters Without Borders describe as a coordinated crackdown on independent media: “draconian laws, website-blocking, Internet cuts and leading news outlets reined in or throttled out of existence.”
Citing these challenges on Friday, the Nobel Committee said that free, independent and factual journalism serves the public by protecting against abuses of power, disinformation and propaganda.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee is convinced that freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public. These rights are crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights,” committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said.
“Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time. This year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize is therefore firmly anchored in the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will.”
The Nobel Committee said on Friday it would not comment about other Nobel laureates, in response to a question about its decision to award the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who is now overseeing a civil war in his country’s Tigray region.
“The freedom of press in Ethiopia is very from ideal,” committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said, adding that journalists operating in the country were “facing severe restrictions.”
“This prize will not solve the problems that journalists or freedom of expression are facing,” she said, adding that the committee hoped the award would shed a light on how dangerous it is to exercise freedom of expression.
Much has changed since Abiy accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in November 2019, telling an audience in Oslo, Norway, that “war is the epitome of hell.”
In less than two years, Abiy has gone from darling of the international community to pariah, condemned for his role in presiding over a protracted civil war that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
A day before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Ressa spoke to CNN from her home in the Philippines about the 2022 Philippines presidential elections, which will be held in May next year.
Rappler’s extensive reporting on the Philippines under President Duterte has made the site – and its journalists – targets of his supporters. Duterte will be standing down from office after a single six-year term in power.
“I have covered this country since 1986, I’ve never been the news but the only reason I’ve become the news is because I refuse to be stamped down I refuse to stop doing my job the way I should,” Ressa said.
“Rule of law is a very important factor for me and the fact … I think rule of law is critical for any democracy because if you don’t have rule of law then it is a hop, skip and a jump to fascism because then whoever is in power decides who lives and who dies, literally.”
Before co-founding Rappler, the Filipino-American journalist and author previously spent nearly two decades as a lead investigative reporter for CNN in southeast Asia. In 2020, Ressa was convicted of “cyber libel,” in a case she and press freedom groups have described as a politically motivated prosecution by the Duterte government.
“I’m very lucky because of CNN. You know. I had enough of a network to be able to fight back … I’m not fighting against the Duterte administration, I’m fighting for my rights. I’m still idealistic.”
Philippines journalist Maria Ressa said she was stunned by the news in a live broadcast by Rappler, the news outlet she cofounded.
“I am in shock,” Ressa she told the broadcast on Friday.
Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov is one of the founders of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
This is what the Nobel Committee said about their decision to award Muratov:
“Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Since 1995 he has been the newspaper’s editor-in-chief for a total of 24 years. Novaya Gazeta is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power. The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media. Since its start-up in 1993, Novaya Gazeta has published critical articles on subjects ranging from corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and ”troll factories” to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia.
“Novaya Gazeta’s opponents have responded with harassment, threats, violence and murder. Since the newspaper’s start, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaya who wrote revealing articles on the war in Chechnya. Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper’s independent policy. He has consistently defended the right of journalists to write anything they want about whatever they want, as long as they comply with the professional and ethical standards of journalism.”
Maria Ressa, journalist and co-founder of investigative news outlet Rappler, has worked tirelessly to expose abuses of power, government corruption and a campaign of violence in the Philippines. She has also taken her fight for freedom of expression to the global stage, exposing the ways in which Facebook and other social platforms have been used to spread fake news.
This is what the Nobel Committee said about their decision to award Ressa:
“Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines. In 2012, she co-founded Rappler, a digital media company for investigative journalism, which she still heads. As a journalist and the Rappler’s CEO, Ressa has shown herself to be a fearless defender of freedom of expression. Rappler has focused critical attention on the Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign. The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country’s own population. Ms. Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.”
Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov were jointly awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their dogged investigative reporting in the Philippines and Russia, where they have worked to safeguard freedom of expression.
The prize is set to be awarded for the 102nd time, with the winner – or winners – joining 135 previous laureates.
Among them are a number of celebrated figures and agencies, and some controversial recipients.
Four US Presidents have won the award; Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, who triumphed in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
They have been joined by several revolutionary and political leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish dissident Lech Walesa.
International organizations are occasionally honored too; the United Nations won the award in 2001, the European Union joined them in 2012, and the World Food Programme is the most recent winner.
In 2014, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the award, aged just 17.
But many winners have proven controversial. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was given the accolade just two years ago, but has since been condemned for his role in presiding over a protracted civil war that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
After 18 turbulent months spent tackling the global Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) is being broadly tipped as the frontrunner to take this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
The United Nations agency, which runs the vaccine-sharing program COVAX, is certainly the bookmakers’ pick for the prestigious accolade. British firms Betfair and William Hill both rank WHO as the odds-on favorite to win, with odds of 5/4 and 6/4 respectively.
Though also a favorite in 2020, WHO lost out last year to the World Food Program, another UN body which helped almost 100 million people in 88 countries in 2019.
Other potential winners floated by the bookmakers include jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
But the Norwegian Nobel Committee rarely gives the accolade to the most well-known or widely-tipped recipient, making the Peace trophy one of the hardest prizes in the world to predict.
The newest winner of one of the world’s esteemed accolades will soon be announced.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a number of activists, world leaders, international agencies and NGOs. But the notoriously enigmatic Norwegian Nobel Committee rarely tips its hand, and frequently uses the award to shine a light on unheralded agents of change.
Last year, the UN’s World Food Programme was given the prize. “It will forever be a tremendous honor,” the body’s executive director David Beasley said on Thursday.
Its successor will be announced imminently: The winner will be revealed at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).
