Maria Ressa, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize this year, is a forceful critic of the Philippines government under President Rodrigo Duterte and his violent war on drugs in the island nation. The committee called her a "fearless defender of freedom of expression."
File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Two journalists from Russia and the Philippines -- Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa -- were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work in countries where the press often comes under attack from hostile authoritarian governments.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the pair have made tireless efforts to maintain press and speech freedoms while under constant threat and harassment.
Ressa, 58, is the co-founder of the Philippines digital media outlet Rappler and Muratov is the longtime editor of and co-founder of the independent Novaja Gazeta newspaper in Russia.
The two were recognized with the Nobel Prize on Friday for their investigative reporting amid ferocious pushback from their governments.
"Ms. Ressa and Mr. Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia," the committee said in a statement.
"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."
Rappler and Ressa, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize this year, are forceful critics of the Philippines government under President Rodrigo Duterte and his violent war on drugs in the island nation. The committee called Ressa a "fearless defender of freedom of expression."
"Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse," the committee said.
Ressa is also the first Filipino to win a Nobel Prize.
Novaja Gazeta has functioned as one of Russia's most independent newspapers since 1993, and Muratov has been editor-in-chief since 1994. The paper has covered corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests and electoral fraud in Russia and exposed "troll factories" used by Russian military forces both inside and outside of Russia.
"Novaja Gazeta's opponents have responded with harassment, threats, violence and murder," the committee said. "Since the newspaper's start, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaja 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."
"Rappler is honored -- and astounded -- by the Nobel Peace Prize Award given to our CEO Maria Ressa," the outlet said in a statement. "It could not have come at a better time -- a time when journalists and the truth are being attacked and undermined."
Friday's Peace Prize was the last of the five major Nobel Prizes awarded each year. A semiofficial prize, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, will be awarded on Monday.
U.S.-based scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutianwon the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Monday; Syukuro Manabe, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi on Tuesday; Professor David MacMillan of Princeton University and German scientist Benjamin List won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday; and novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, an African immigrant who detailed the experiences of refugees and the impact of colonialism, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
“It’s a recognition of the memory of our fallen colleagues,” he said.
“Since the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t awarded posthumously, they came up with this so that Anya could take it, but through other, second hands,” Muratov said, referring to Politkovskaya.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 17 media workers were killed in the Philippines in the last decade and 23 in Russia.
Muratov said he would use part of his share of the 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million) prize money to help independent media as well as a Moscow hospice and children with spinal muscular problems. He said he wouldn’t keep any of the money himself.
Former Soviet leader and 1990 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev used some of his award to help fund what would become Novaya Gazeta. He congratulated Muratov, calling him “a wonderful, brave and honest journalist and my friend.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also praised Muratov as a “talented and brave” person who “has consistently worked in accordance with his ideals.”
But Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, tweeted that Novaya Gazeta’s editorial policy “has nothing to do with strengthening peace” and that “such controversial decisions diminish the value of the Prize.”
Moscow-based political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said the award marked “a painful strike to the Russian authorities ... because the freedom of speech and the principles of independent journalism are an evil in the eyes of Russian authorities.”
As part of a new crackdown on independent journalists in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, the government has designated some of them “foreign agents,” saying they received funding from abroad and engaged in undescribed “political activities.” Muratov said he asked government officials who congratulated him if he would now also receive that designation, but received no reply.
The state RIA Novosti news agency quoted lawmaker Alexander Bashkin as saying the Nobel wouldn’t fall under the definition of foreign funding under the bill on foreign agents. Hours after the prize announcement, the Russian Justice Ministry added nine more journalists to its list of foreign agents.
Muratov on Friday denounced the foreign agent bill as a “shameless” attempt to muzzle independent voices.
Referring to the hopes by many in Russia that the prize should go to imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Muratov said he would have voted for him if he were on the committee, saying that he admires Navalny’s courage and adding that “everything is still ahead for him.”
Some critics have questioned if honoring journalists respected the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel and its original purpose to prevent war, but Reiss-Andersen said freedom of expression was essential to peace.
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” she 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.”
She also cited the danger of misinformation and attacks on journalists by leaders denouncing them as purveyors of “fake news.”
“Conveying fake news and information that is propaganda and untrue is also a violation of freedom of expression, and all freedom of expression has its limitations. That is also a very important factor in this debate,” she said.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders celebrated the announcement, expressing “joy and urgency.”
Director Christophe Deloire called it “an extraordinary tribute to journalism, an excellent tribute to all journalists who take risks everywhere around the world to defend the right to information.”
“Journalism is in danger, journalism is weakened, journalism is threatened. Democracies are weakened by disinformation, by rumors, by hate speech,” said Deloire, whose group has worked with Ressa and Muratov to defend defend journalism in their countries and comes under regular criticism from authoritarian governments.
U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated Ressa and Muratov for the “much-deserved honor.”
“Ressa, Muratov, and journalists like them all around the world are on the front lines of a global battle for the very idea of the truth, and I, along with people everywhere, am grateful for their groundbreaking work to ‘hold the line,’ as Ressa so often says,” Biden said in a statement.
After the announcement, the Nobel committee itself was put on the spot when a reporter asked about its decision to award the 2019 peace prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has since become entangled in a domestic conflict with the powerful Tigray region.
“Today, I will not comment on other Nobel laureates and other issues than we have on the table today, but I can mention that the situation for freedom of press in Ethiopia is very far from ideal and is facing severe restrictions,” Reiss-Andersen said.
In other awards announced this week by the Nobel Committee:
— The medicine prize went to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.
— The physics prize went to three scientists whose work found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding understanding of climate change.
— The chemistry prize went to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for finding an easier and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that can be used to make compounds, including medicines and pesticides.
— The literature prize went to U.K.-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee.”
The economics prize will be awarded Monday.
___
Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Rosario reported from Manila. Kostya Manenkov in Moscow, Masha Macpherson in Paris, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.
___
Read more stories about Nobel Prizes past and present by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes
Philippines' Nobel Prize winner Ressa says award for 'all journalists'
Issued on: 09/10/2021 -
Philippine journalist Maria Ressa (pictured after her arrest in 2019)
says her Nobel Peace Prize is for 'all journalists around the world'
TED ALJIBE AFP/File
Manila (AFP)
Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa on Saturday said her Nobel Peace Prize was for "all journalists around the world", as she vowed to continue her battle for press freedom.
Ressa, co-founder of news website Rappler, and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the prize on Friday for their efforts to "safeguard freedom of expression".
"This is really for all journalists around the world," Ressa, a vocal critic of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, told AFP in an interview.
"We do need help on so many fronts -- it is so much more difficult and dangerous to be a journalist today."
Philippine press groups and rights activists hailed Ressa's award as a "triumph" in a country ranked as one of the world's most dangerous for journalists.
Since Duterte was swept to power in 2016, Ressa and Rappler have endured what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, investigations and online attacks.
Duterte has called Rappler a "fake news outlet", and Ressa has been the target of abusive messages online.
Ressa, 58, said she hoped the prize would provide a protective shield for her and other journalists in the Philippines against physical attacks and online threats.
"This 'us against them' was never the creation of the journalists, it was the creation of the people in power who wanted to use a type of leadership that divides society," Ressa said, describing the award "like a shot of adrenalin".
"I hope this allows journalists to do our jobs well without fear."
- 'Fearless' -
Ressa has been a staunch critic of Duterte and his government's policies, including a drug war that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men.
Rappler was among the domestic and foreign media outlets that published shocking images of the killings and questioned its legal basis.
International Criminal Court judges have authorised a full-blown investigation into a possible crime against humanity during the bloody campaign.
Other media outlets have fallen foul of Duterte, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and broadcasting giant ABS-CBN, which lost its free-to-air licence last year.
But Ressa said Rappler's independence meant it could fight back. "We have no other businesses to protect... so it's very easy for us to push back," she said.
Ressa said seven legal cases, including tax evasion, still in the courts were "ludicrous" and she was determined to win.
She is on bail pending an appeal against a conviction last year in a cyber libel case, for which she faces up to six years in prison.
Two other cyber libel cases were dismissed earlier this year.
"That abuse of power would have worked if I allowed the fear in my emotions and in my head to dominate our reaction -- the biggest challenge was always to conquer your fear," she said.
"Being fearless doesn't mean not being afraid, it just means knowing how to handle your fear."
The author of "How to Stand Up to a Dictator" hopes to get permission to travel to Norway to pick up her Nobel Prize.
© 2021 AFP
Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Two journalists from Russia and the Philippines -- Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa -- were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work in countries where the press often comes under attack from hostile authoritarian governments.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the pair have made tireless efforts to maintain press and speech freedoms while under constant threat and harassment.
Ressa, 58, is the co-founder of the Philippines digital media outlet Rappler and Muratov is the longtime editor of and co-founder of the independent Novaja Gazeta newspaper in Russia.
The two were recognized with the Nobel Prize on Friday for their investigative reporting amid ferocious pushback from their governments.
"Ms. Ressa and Mr. Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia," the committee said in a statement.
"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."
Rappler and Ressa, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize this year, are forceful critics of the Philippines government under President Rodrigo Duterte and his violent war on drugs in the island nation. The committee called Ressa a "fearless defender of freedom of expression."
"Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse," the committee said.
Ressa is also the first Filipino to win a Nobel Prize.
Novaja Gazeta has functioned as one of Russia's most independent newspapers since 1993, and Muratov has been editor-in-chief since 1994. The paper has covered corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests and electoral fraud in Russia and exposed "troll factories" used by Russian military forces both inside and outside of Russia.
"Novaja Gazeta's opponents have responded with harassment, threats, violence and murder," the committee said. "Since the newspaper's start, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaja 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."
"Rappler is honored -- and astounded -- by the Nobel Peace Prize Award given to our CEO Maria Ressa," the outlet said in a statement. "It could not have come at a better time -- a time when journalists and the truth are being attacked and undermined."
Friday's Peace Prize was the last of the five major Nobel Prizes awarded each year. A semiofficial prize, the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, will be awarded on Monday.
U.S.-based scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutianwon the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Monday; Syukuro Manabe, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi on Tuesday; Professor David MacMillan of Princeton University and German scientist Benjamin List won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday; and novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, an African immigrant who detailed the experiences of refugees and the impact of colonialism, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Nobel Peace Prize awarded to journalists Ressa and Muratov
FILE - A combo of file images of Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov, left, and of Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa. On Friday, Oct. 8, 2021 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their fight for freedom of expression. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko and Aaron Favila, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.
Ressa and Muratov were honored for their “courageous” work but also were considered “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,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
MOSCOW (AP) — Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder.
Ressa and Muratov were honored for their “courageous” work but also were considered “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,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Ressa in 2012 co-founded Rappler, a news website that the committee noted had focused critical attention on President Rodrigo Duterte’s “controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign” in the Philippines.
She and Rappler “have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse,” it said.
Muratov was one of the founders in 1993 of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which the Nobel committee called “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,” it added, noting that six of its journalists were killed since its founding.
Ressa, the first Filipino to win the peace prize and the first woman to be honored this year with an award by the Nobel committee, was convicted last year of libel and sentenced to jail in a decision seen as a major blow to press global freedom.
Currently out on bail but facing seven active legal cases, Ressa, 58, said she hopes the award will bolster investigative journalism “that will hold power to account.”
“This relentless campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and my fellow journalists in the Philippines is a stark example of a global trend,” she told The Associated Press.
She also pointed to social media giants like Facebook as a serious threat to democracy, saying “they actually prioritized the spread of lies laced with anger and hate over facts.”
“I didn’t think that what we are going through would get that attention. But the fact that it did also shows you how important the battles we face are, right?” she said. “This is going to be what our elections are going to be like next year. It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism.”
Muratov, 59, said he sees the prize as an award to Novaya Gazeta journalists and contributors who were killed, including Anna Politkovskaya, who covered Russia’s bloody conflict in Chechnya.
She and Rappler “have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse,” it said.
Muratov was one of the founders in 1993 of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which the Nobel committee called “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,” it added, noting that six of its journalists were killed since its founding.
Ressa, the first Filipino to win the peace prize and the first woman to be honored this year with an award by the Nobel committee, was convicted last year of libel and sentenced to jail in a decision seen as a major blow to press global freedom.
Currently out on bail but facing seven active legal cases, Ressa, 58, said she hopes the award will bolster investigative journalism “that will hold power to account.”
“This relentless campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and my fellow journalists in the Philippines is a stark example of a global trend,” she told The Associated Press.
She also pointed to social media giants like Facebook as a serious threat to democracy, saying “they actually prioritized the spread of lies laced with anger and hate over facts.”
“I didn’t think that what we are going through would get that attention. But the fact that it did also shows you how important the battles we face are, right?” she said. “This is going to be what our elections are going to be like next year. It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism.”
Muratov, 59, said he sees the prize as an award to Novaya Gazeta journalists and contributors who were killed, including Anna Politkovskaya, who covered Russia’s bloody conflict in Chechnya.
“It’s a recognition of the memory of our fallen colleagues,” he said.
“Since the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t awarded posthumously, they came up with this so that Anya could take it, but through other, second hands,” Muratov said, referring to Politkovskaya.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 17 media workers were killed in the Philippines in the last decade and 23 in Russia.
Muratov said he would use part of his share of the 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million) prize money to help independent media as well as a Moscow hospice and children with spinal muscular problems. He said he wouldn’t keep any of the money himself.
Former Soviet leader and 1990 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev used some of his award to help fund what would become Novaya Gazeta. He congratulated Muratov, calling him “a wonderful, brave and honest journalist and my friend.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also praised Muratov as a “talented and brave” person who “has consistently worked in accordance with his ideals.”
But Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, tweeted that Novaya Gazeta’s editorial policy “has nothing to do with strengthening peace” and that “such controversial decisions diminish the value of the Prize.”
Moscow-based political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said the award marked “a painful strike to the Russian authorities ... because the freedom of speech and the principles of independent journalism are an evil in the eyes of Russian authorities.”
As part of a new crackdown on independent journalists in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, the government has designated some of them “foreign agents,” saying they received funding from abroad and engaged in undescribed “political activities.” Muratov said he asked government officials who congratulated him if he would now also receive that designation, but received no reply.
The state RIA Novosti news agency quoted lawmaker Alexander Bashkin as saying the Nobel wouldn’t fall under the definition of foreign funding under the bill on foreign agents. Hours after the prize announcement, the Russian Justice Ministry added nine more journalists to its list of foreign agents.
Muratov on Friday denounced the foreign agent bill as a “shameless” attempt to muzzle independent voices.
Referring to the hopes by many in Russia that the prize should go to imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Muratov said he would have voted for him if he were on the committee, saying that he admires Navalny’s courage and adding that “everything is still ahead for him.”
Some critics have questioned if honoring journalists respected the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel and its original purpose to prevent war, but Reiss-Andersen said freedom of expression was essential to peace.
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” she 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.”
She also cited the danger of misinformation and attacks on journalists by leaders denouncing them as purveyors of “fake news.”
“Conveying fake news and information that is propaganda and untrue is also a violation of freedom of expression, and all freedom of expression has its limitations. That is also a very important factor in this debate,” she said.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders celebrated the announcement, expressing “joy and urgency.”
Director Christophe Deloire called it “an extraordinary tribute to journalism, an excellent tribute to all journalists who take risks everywhere around the world to defend the right to information.”
“Journalism is in danger, journalism is weakened, journalism is threatened. Democracies are weakened by disinformation, by rumors, by hate speech,” said Deloire, whose group has worked with Ressa and Muratov to defend defend journalism in their countries and comes under regular criticism from authoritarian governments.
U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated Ressa and Muratov for the “much-deserved honor.”
“Ressa, Muratov, and journalists like them all around the world are on the front lines of a global battle for the very idea of the truth, and I, along with people everywhere, am grateful for their groundbreaking work to ‘hold the line,’ as Ressa so often says,” Biden said in a statement.
After the announcement, the Nobel committee itself was put on the spot when a reporter asked about its decision to award the 2019 peace prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has since become entangled in a domestic conflict with the powerful Tigray region.
“Today, I will not comment on other Nobel laureates and other issues than we have on the table today, but I can mention that the situation for freedom of press in Ethiopia is very far from ideal and is facing severe restrictions,” Reiss-Andersen said.
In other awards announced this week by the Nobel Committee:
— The medicine prize went to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.
— The physics prize went to three scientists whose work found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding understanding of climate change.
— The chemistry prize went to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for finding an easier and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that can be used to make compounds, including medicines and pesticides.
— The literature prize went to U.K.-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee.”
The economics prize will be awarded Monday.
___
Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Rosario reported from Manila. Kostya Manenkov in Moscow, Masha Macpherson in Paris, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.
___
Read more stories about Nobel Prizes past and present by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes
Philippines' Nobel Prize winner Ressa says award for 'all journalists'
Issued on: 09/10/2021 -
Philippine journalist Maria Ressa (pictured after her arrest in 2019)
says her Nobel Peace Prize is for 'all journalists around the world'
TED ALJIBE AFP/File
Manila (AFP)
Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa on Saturday said her Nobel Peace Prize was for "all journalists around the world", as she vowed to continue her battle for press freedom.
Ressa, co-founder of news website Rappler, and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the prize on Friday for their efforts to "safeguard freedom of expression".
"This is really for all journalists around the world," Ressa, a vocal critic of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, told AFP in an interview.
"We do need help on so many fronts -- it is so much more difficult and dangerous to be a journalist today."
Philippine press groups and rights activists hailed Ressa's award as a "triumph" in a country ranked as one of the world's most dangerous for journalists.
Since Duterte was swept to power in 2016, Ressa and Rappler have endured what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, investigations and online attacks.
Duterte has called Rappler a "fake news outlet", and Ressa has been the target of abusive messages online.
Ressa, 58, said she hoped the prize would provide a protective shield for her and other journalists in the Philippines against physical attacks and online threats.
"This 'us against them' was never the creation of the journalists, it was the creation of the people in power who wanted to use a type of leadership that divides society," Ressa said, describing the award "like a shot of adrenalin".
"I hope this allows journalists to do our jobs well without fear."
- 'Fearless' -
Ressa has been a staunch critic of Duterte and his government's policies, including a drug war that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men.
Rappler was among the domestic and foreign media outlets that published shocking images of the killings and questioned its legal basis.
International Criminal Court judges have authorised a full-blown investigation into a possible crime against humanity during the bloody campaign.
Other media outlets have fallen foul of Duterte, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and broadcasting giant ABS-CBN, which lost its free-to-air licence last year.
But Ressa said Rappler's independence meant it could fight back. "We have no other businesses to protect... so it's very easy for us to push back," she said.
Ressa said seven legal cases, including tax evasion, still in the courts were "ludicrous" and she was determined to win.
She is on bail pending an appeal against a conviction last year in a cyber libel case, for which she faces up to six years in prison.
Two other cyber libel cases were dismissed earlier this year.
"That abuse of power would have worked if I allowed the fear in my emotions and in my head to dominate our reaction -- the biggest challenge was always to conquer your fear," she said.
"Being fearless doesn't mean not being afraid, it just means knowing how to handle your fear."
The author of "How to Stand Up to a Dictator" hopes to get permission to travel to Norway to pick up her Nobel Prize.
© 2021 AFP
What Peace Prize says about freedom in Russia, Philippines
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1 of 8
FILE - In this Jan. 19, 2018, file photo, journalists and supporters display their messages during a protest against the recent Securities and Exchange Commission's revocation of the registration of Rappler, an online news outfit, northeast of Manila, Philippines.
(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize sometimes recognizes groundbreaking efforts to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts, such as once-sworn enemies who sat down and brokered an end to war. In other years, the recipient is someone who promoted human rights at great personal cost.
The prestigious award also can serve as a not-so-subtle message to authoritarian governments and leaders that the world is watching.
What does the selection of two journalists, Maria Ressa, 58, of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, 59, of Russia, say about freedom of expression and the history of dissent in the countries of the 2021 peace prize winners?
“It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism,” Ressa said Friday.
RUSSIA
Dmitry Muratov is part of a historic cycle that links him to two other Russian winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
When Andrei Sakharov, a prominent Soviet nuclear physicist turned political dissident, received the prize in 1975, the Cold War was at its height and the Soviet Union seemed invincible.
The country’s Communist leaders tolerated no dissent. Five years after becoming a Nobel laureate, Sakharov’s bold criticism of the Soviet regime got him sent into internal exile.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Sakharov to return from exile in 1986, and went on to win the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Cold War.
But while he was earning international accolades, Gorbachev was under attack from both members of the Communist old guard who opposed his reforms and democracy champions such as Sakharov who accused him of being indecisive.
The Soviet Union collapsed after a string of Soviet republics declared their independence and Gorbachev stepped down as president on Dec. 25, 1991.
The former leader would use some of his Nobel Prize money to help a group of Russian journalists, including Muratov, buy computers and office equipment for their new independent newspaper in 1993. Gorbachev eventually became Novaya Gazeta’s co-owner; Muratov was its editor from 1995 to 2017, and returned to the post in 2019.
Under his leadership, the publication has become the country’s top independent newspaper, broadly acclaimed internationally for its fearless reporting on the bloody separatist war in the Russian republic of Chechnya and on official corruption. The paper has taken a consistently critical look at the rollback of post-Soviet freedoms during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than two decades in power.
Several Novaya reporters and contributors were killed. The paper’s leading reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, who relentlessly covered human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.
A Moscow court convicted the gunman and three other Chechens in the killing, as well as a former Moscow police officer who was their accomplice. But on Thursday, the 15th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s slaying, Muratov noted that the Russian authorities never tracked down the person who ordered it.
“Regrettably, there is no probe going on now,” Muratov said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We don’t even know when an investigator last touched that criminal case.”
He vowed that the newspaper would continue working to track down the mastermind of Politkovskaya’s killing on its own.
Muratov also pledged to use his Nobel Prize to help independent Russian journalists. Many people in Russia voiced hope that the prize, by emphasizing global support for media freedom, would help restrain the government’s multi-pronged crackdown on independent media.
PHILIPPINES
The Philippines was one of the few places in Asia where freedom of the press seemed assured when Maria Ressa and other journalists founded the online magazine Rappler in 2012.
The government of long-time dictator Ferdinard Marcos had muzzled the media, imprisoned opponents and tortured activists. But after the 1986 “people power” revolution toppled Marcos, a myriad of newspapers, lively radio stations and closely watched TV channels sprang up to chronicle the new chapter in the Philippines.
Their mission: delivering timely information to a Filipino population hungry for news.
In the following years, the Philippines remained a dangerous place for journalists, a free-wheeling country where retaliatory violence often accompanied the freedom to speak up due to an abundance of firearms, legal impunity and political instability. It had one of the highest numbers of reporters killed each year.
Then came the election of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. After campaigning on a promise to deal with widespread crime, he launched a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, enlisting police and unidentified gunmen who became the judge and jury for thousands of mostly poor suspects in Manila’s sprawling urban slums.
Rappler CEO Ressa and other staff members took to reporting the nighttime raids that left hundreds and then thousands dead in overwhelmed morgues. Police said they were acting in self-defense when officers gunned down alleged drug dealers. Few suspects were questioned in what human rights activists soon described as extrajudicial executions.
As the death toll mounted, so did Rappler’s stories, some of which suggested that weapons could have been planted on the people killed.
In a Nov. 9, 2020, story, Rappler reporter Rambo Talabong quoted the last words of Vicent Adia, a 27-year-old man who was labeled a drug pusher and initially survived “a vigilante execution” only to be slain by a gunman at a hospital near Manila. According to Rappler, Adia had told his close friend: “The police are about to kill me.”
Duterte’s fury at journalists increased as well. The tough-talking president declared that “corrupt” journalists were not “exempted from assassination.”
“In 2016, it was really, really laughable. And I thought, ‘Oh, doesn’t matter.’ I laughed,” Ressa said in a 2020 interview, recalling her disbelief that the president would make good on his lethal threats in a country where democracy and human rights had been restored.
Any hint of humor evaporated when she became a target. She was arrested and held for a night, prosecuted in a series of criminal cases, including tax evasion, and convicted of libel. She remains free on bail while the libel case is on appeal, but faces up to six years in prison.
At about the same time, Ressa began wearing a bulletproof vest because of threats. In the 2020 documentary “A Thousand Cuts,” by Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, she is seen pleading with Facebook representatives to delete violent posts against her and to remove livestreams of Duterte supporters protesting outside Rappler’s offices.
“The Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. In the last year, the government has prevented my travel four times, including when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I needed to go to see my aging parents,” Ressa said in a Zoom interview after she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.
In June, a Manila court dismissed a cyber-libel case against Ressa arising from a complaint filed by a wealthy businessman. A 2012 Rappler article included allegations that the businessman was linked to illegal drugs and human trafficking, and that a car registered in his name had been used by the country’s chief justice.
The law under which Ressa was charged by the government, the Cybercrime Prevention Act, did not go into effect until months after the article appeared, according to Rappler.
In August, another case against her was dismissed. Ressa has pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching a ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets in the Philippines, as well as tax evasion charges.
“You don’t know how powerful government is until you come under attack the way we have. When all the different parts of government work against you, it’s kind of shocking,” Ressa said.
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Associated Press writer Hrvoje Hranjski reported from Bangkok and has previously reported from Manila. Anna Frants in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Read more stories about Nobel Prizes past and present by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes
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MOSCOW (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize sometimes recognizes groundbreaking efforts to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts, such as once-sworn enemies who sat down and brokered an end to war. In other years, the recipient is someone who promoted human rights at great personal cost.
The prestigious award also can serve as a not-so-subtle message to authoritarian governments and leaders that the world is watching.
What does the selection of two journalists, Maria Ressa, 58, of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, 59, of Russia, say about freedom of expression and the history of dissent in the countries of the 2021 peace prize winners?
“It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism,” Ressa said Friday.
RUSSIA
Dmitry Muratov is part of a historic cycle that links him to two other Russian winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
When Andrei Sakharov, a prominent Soviet nuclear physicist turned political dissident, received the prize in 1975, the Cold War was at its height and the Soviet Union seemed invincible.
The country’s Communist leaders tolerated no dissent. Five years after becoming a Nobel laureate, Sakharov’s bold criticism of the Soviet regime got him sent into internal exile.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Sakharov to return from exile in 1986, and went on to win the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Cold War.
But while he was earning international accolades, Gorbachev was under attack from both members of the Communist old guard who opposed his reforms and democracy champions such as Sakharov who accused him of being indecisive.
The Soviet Union collapsed after a string of Soviet republics declared their independence and Gorbachev stepped down as president on Dec. 25, 1991.
The former leader would use some of his Nobel Prize money to help a group of Russian journalists, including Muratov, buy computers and office equipment for their new independent newspaper in 1993. Gorbachev eventually became Novaya Gazeta’s co-owner; Muratov was its editor from 1995 to 2017, and returned to the post in 2019.
Under his leadership, the publication has become the country’s top independent newspaper, broadly acclaimed internationally for its fearless reporting on the bloody separatist war in the Russian republic of Chechnya and on official corruption. The paper has taken a consistently critical look at the rollback of post-Soviet freedoms during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than two decades in power.
Several Novaya reporters and contributors were killed. The paper’s leading reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, who relentlessly covered human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.
A Moscow court convicted the gunman and three other Chechens in the killing, as well as a former Moscow police officer who was their accomplice. But on Thursday, the 15th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s slaying, Muratov noted that the Russian authorities never tracked down the person who ordered it.
“Regrettably, there is no probe going on now,” Muratov said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We don’t even know when an investigator last touched that criminal case.”
He vowed that the newspaper would continue working to track down the mastermind of Politkovskaya’s killing on its own.
Muratov also pledged to use his Nobel Prize to help independent Russian journalists. Many people in Russia voiced hope that the prize, by emphasizing global support for media freedom, would help restrain the government’s multi-pronged crackdown on independent media.
PHILIPPINES
The Philippines was one of the few places in Asia where freedom of the press seemed assured when Maria Ressa and other journalists founded the online magazine Rappler in 2012.
The government of long-time dictator Ferdinard Marcos had muzzled the media, imprisoned opponents and tortured activists. But after the 1986 “people power” revolution toppled Marcos, a myriad of newspapers, lively radio stations and closely watched TV channels sprang up to chronicle the new chapter in the Philippines.
Their mission: delivering timely information to a Filipino population hungry for news.
In the following years, the Philippines remained a dangerous place for journalists, a free-wheeling country where retaliatory violence often accompanied the freedom to speak up due to an abundance of firearms, legal impunity and political instability. It had one of the highest numbers of reporters killed each year.
Then came the election of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. After campaigning on a promise to deal with widespread crime, he launched a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, enlisting police and unidentified gunmen who became the judge and jury for thousands of mostly poor suspects in Manila’s sprawling urban slums.
Rappler CEO Ressa and other staff members took to reporting the nighttime raids that left hundreds and then thousands dead in overwhelmed morgues. Police said they were acting in self-defense when officers gunned down alleged drug dealers. Few suspects were questioned in what human rights activists soon described as extrajudicial executions.
As the death toll mounted, so did Rappler’s stories, some of which suggested that weapons could have been planted on the people killed.
In a Nov. 9, 2020, story, Rappler reporter Rambo Talabong quoted the last words of Vicent Adia, a 27-year-old man who was labeled a drug pusher and initially survived “a vigilante execution” only to be slain by a gunman at a hospital near Manila. According to Rappler, Adia had told his close friend: “The police are about to kill me.”
Duterte’s fury at journalists increased as well. The tough-talking president declared that “corrupt” journalists were not “exempted from assassination.”
“In 2016, it was really, really laughable. And I thought, ‘Oh, doesn’t matter.’ I laughed,” Ressa said in a 2020 interview, recalling her disbelief that the president would make good on his lethal threats in a country where democracy and human rights had been restored.
Any hint of humor evaporated when she became a target. She was arrested and held for a night, prosecuted in a series of criminal cases, including tax evasion, and convicted of libel. She remains free on bail while the libel case is on appeal, but faces up to six years in prison.
At about the same time, Ressa began wearing a bulletproof vest because of threats. In the 2020 documentary “A Thousand Cuts,” by Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, she is seen pleading with Facebook representatives to delete violent posts against her and to remove livestreams of Duterte supporters protesting outside Rappler’s offices.
“The Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. In the last year, the government has prevented my travel four times, including when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I needed to go to see my aging parents,” Ressa said in a Zoom interview after she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.
In June, a Manila court dismissed a cyber-libel case against Ressa arising from a complaint filed by a wealthy businessman. A 2012 Rappler article included allegations that the businessman was linked to illegal drugs and human trafficking, and that a car registered in his name had been used by the country’s chief justice.
The law under which Ressa was charged by the government, the Cybercrime Prevention Act, did not go into effect until months after the article appeared, according to Rappler.
In August, another case against her was dismissed. Ressa has pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching a ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets in the Philippines, as well as tax evasion charges.
“You don’t know how powerful government is until you come under attack the way we have. When all the different parts of government work against you, it’s kind of shocking,” Ressa said.
___
Associated Press writer Hrvoje Hranjski reported from Bangkok and has previously reported from Manila. Anna Frants in Moscow contributed to this report.
___
Read more stories about Nobel Prizes past and present by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes
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