Nobel Peace Prize: Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov share award
Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their fights to defend freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia.
The Nobel committee called the pair “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal”.
They are known for investigations that have angered their countries’ rulers, and have faced significant threats.
Both spoke in defense of freedom of the press following their win.
Ms. Ressa, who co-founded the news site Rappler, was commended for using freedom of expression to “expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines”.
The Nobel committee said Mr. Muratov, the co-founder and editor of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, had for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” the committee said in a statement.
“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,” it added.
Award-winning journalist Ms. Ressa was convicted last year of libel in a case seen as a test of Philippine press freedom.
In a live broadcast by Rappler, she said she was “in shock”.
“This shows that the Nobel Peace Prize committee realized that a world without facts means a world without truth and trust,” she said.
Mr. Muratov dedicated his prize to reporters at Novaya Gazeta who had been killed because of their work. The award came a day after the 15th anniversary of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya – one of the paper’s top investigative reporters and vocal critic of Russia’s war in Chechnya, who was shot in a lift in her block of flats.
“I can’t take all the credit. This is thanks to Novaya Gazeta and those who died while defending people’s right to freedom of speech,” he told Russian news agency Tass.
The winners of the prestigious prize, worth 10m Swedish krona (£836,000; $1.1m), were chosen out of 329 candidates.