Nobel Peace Prize winners hope award means protection from danger
Peace Prize winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov spoke of the dangers journalists face doing their job in their home countries. Both said they hope the international attention and publicity would protect them from future harm.
Nobel Peace Prize winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov spoke of the dangers journalists face doing their job in their home countries at a press conference on Thursday. Both said they hope the international attention and publicity would protect them from future harm.
Ressa: Peace Prize means protection
During a press conference at the Nobel Institute on Thursday, Nobel Peace Prize winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov spoke of what they hoped securing the prestigious award would bring them.
Ressa, 58, faces four lawsuits in her home country and was only this week granted permission to leave The Philippines to collect her award. She likened the Peace Prize to a ‘shield’ which has “raised the energy and morale not only of Filipino journalists but of all journalists all over the world…” she told press agency NTB.
Over the last decade, more than 33 journalists have been killed in the Philippines, where freedom of expression is seriously under threat by the authoritarian leanings of President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa’s media organization, Rappler, has been under financial and judicial pressure from the Filipino government due to it broadcasting the dark, bloody, and illegal aspects of Duterte’s war on the illegal drug trade. Extrajudicial killings, by members of the police force and Aarmy, are seen as having been personally approved by the President.
Muratov: Society must help journalists
Dmitry Muratov, 60, has seen 6 of his colleagues at his newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, killed over the past decade. He said he hopes that since “journalism helps society. Now society must help journalists.” His newspaper is often at odds with the regime of President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia since 1999. Though the President did congratulate Muratov on winning the award, he rather ominously and ambiguously said the award did not shield Muratov from any protection.
Muratov noted that since the announcement of his win in October, his newspaper has seen a dramatic increase in workload. Requests for Muratov’s help, from members of the public, for the stopping of illegal logging, legal assistance, and even obtaining vital medicines have flooded in to the newspaper.
Source : ©️ NTB Scanpix / #NorwayTravel
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