The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, founder of the news website Rappler, and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov.
In announcing the award, the Nobel committee chair, Berit Reiss-Andersen, said: “Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda.
“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 added.
Maria Ressa, the first Filipino to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. She founded Rappler in 2012, an online news website that “has focused critical attention on [President Rodrigo] Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign,” the committee writes.
What is more, Ressa and Rappler ”have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse,” it added.
In recent years, the journalist has been the target of a series of attacks. For her cover of Duterte’s ruthless “war on drugs”, she ended up in jail twice.
Her tenth arrest warrant for cyber libel in less than two years shows “definitely a pattern of harassment,” Ressa, a former CNN correspondent, laments.
Despite the risks, Maria Ressa, whose book “How to stand up to a dictator” will be released in April 2022, has decided to stay in her country.
“I don’t think this is me, I think this is Rappler. I have – we have – all along said this since 2016, that that we are fighting for facts,” the journalist said upon hearing about the award.
If the news becomes debatable, she warns “then journalism becomes activism”, a “battle for facts”. For her, “the Nobel peace prize committee realised that a world without facts means a world without truth and trust.”
The Philippines is ranked the seventh most dangerous country in the world for journalists. As a sign of things to come, when he took office in 2016, President Duterte said that “Freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.”