Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to defend freedom of expression. The announcement was made this Friday (8.Oct.2021) by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden. here is the whole of the communiqué in English (81 KB).
“Ressa and Muratov are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous struggle for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia“, appears in the note. “At the same time, they represent all journalists who defend this ideal in a world where democracy and press freedom face increasingly adverse conditions.“, he completed.
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The Swedish Academy highlighted that the “free, independent, fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda“. The freedoms of expression and information are “essential prerequisites for democracy and protect against wars and conflicts“, according to the institution.
“Without freedom of speech and press, it will be difficult to successfully promote brotherhood among nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time“, concluded the academy.
In addition to the title, the winners will share a prize worth 10 million SEK (approximately R$6.3 million in today’s exchange rate).
MEET THE WINNERS
Maria Ressa
The Filipino journalist exposes the abuse of power, the use of violence and the growing authoritarianism of her country’s government. She is co-founder and director of rappler, a digital media company for investigative journalism. The company drew critical attention to President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial anti-drug campaign. Another prominent project was the dissemination of how social media is being used to spread false news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.
Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov
The fellow journalist has for decades defended freedom of expression in his home country, Russia, under increasingly challenging conditions. He is one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazette. Even in the face of intimidation, the newspaper maintains a critical attitude towards the government and has become an important source of information about questionable measures taken by President Vladimir Putin, which are not usually disclosed in other media outlets. The newspaper reports cases of corruption, police violence, illegal arrests, electoral fraud, the use of Russian military forces inside and outside the country, among other issues. For this reason, 6 journalists from the newspaper were murdered
NOBEL 2021
The other laureates this year were:
- Medicine: David Julius and Arden Patapoutian;
- Physics: Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi;
- Chemistry: Benjamin List and David MacMillan;
- Literature: Abdulrazak Gurnah.
The Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced next Monday (11.Oct).