Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov

The Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Peace prize to two journalists comes as countries around the world roll back the rights of reporters.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, themselves considered a contender for the prize, said in its most recent Press Freedom Index that journalism "is totally blocked or seriously impeded in 73 countries and constrained in 59 others."

Had China allowed free press, the world would have known about the coronavirus outbreak far earlier and the virus may not have been allowed to spiral into a global pandemic, the organization told CNN last year.

The crackdown on journalistic freedom is closely felt at both Rappler and Novaya Gazeta where the Nobel Peace Prize winners work. Reacting to his win, Dmitry Muratov said the prize is a testament to the newspaper's dedication to free speech and his colleagues who have died fighting for it, Russian state media TASS reported.

"I worked, I was busy. They called me from the Nobel Committee, but I didn't pick up the phone. I didn't even have time to read the entire text," he told TASS. "I'll tell you this: this is not my merit. This is Novaya Gazeta. These are those who died defending the right of people to freedom of speech."

Anna Politkovskaya, once a leading voice in Russia reporting on the Chechnya war for Novaya Gazeta, was killed 15 years ago on Thursday.

"I am in shock," Ressa said during a live broadcast by Rappler on Friday, according to Reuters.

On Thursday, a day before she won the prize, Ressa spoke to CNN about next year's Philippine elections. "I have covered this country since 1986, I've never been the news. But the only reason I've become the news is because I refuse to be stamped down, I refuse to stop doing my job the way I should," she said.

The international legal team representing 2021 Noble Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa applauded the honor given to the journalist and reiterated their "call for the Philippines to immediately drop all the outstanding cases against" her and her organization Rappler.

Amal Clooney and Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, who serve on her legal team, said in a news release that the journalist and the digital media company "face a barrage of criminal and civil proceedings launched in response to their public interest journalism, including a sentence of up to 6 years for libel that is currently on appeal."

"These prosecutions expose Ms Ressa to a lifetime behind bars," they said.

More about Ressa: Ressa is the CEO of Rappler, a news outlet critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's regime. Ressa, also a former CNN bureau chief and TIME Person of the Year, has been engulfed in legal battles in recent years and says she has been targeted because of her news site's critical reports on Duterte.

Digital media company Rappler has said it is “honored and astounded” by the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to CEO Maria Ressa. 

Ressa was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression. 

“We thank the Nobel for recognizing all journalists both in the Philippines and in the world who continue to shine the light even in the darkest and toughest hours,” the statement added.

Ressa co-founded Rappler in 2012 – a “social news network” for investigative journalism that has since focussed critical attention on the Duterte regime’s murderous anti-drug campaign in the Philippines. 

“Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the daily struggle to uphold the truth and who continues to hold the line with us,” Rappler said Friday.

Executive Editor of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Joel Simon congratulated both winners, describing them as “two fearless journalists and symbols of the struggle for press freedom.”

Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta -- whose editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday -- built its reputation as an outpost of the free press in part for its fearless reporting on the conflict in Chechnya, the former breakaway region in southern Russia.  

Officially, the prize was cause for official celebration: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov congratulated Muratov, calling him “committed to his ideals,” “talented” and “brave.”   

But there is little doubt that the paper was an irritant to the powers that be in Russia and to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. It was the outbreak of a second war in Chechnya, after all, that propelled Putin to the Russian presidency on New Year’s Eve, 1999.  

The war in Chechnya has a complicated backstory, but one of the most clear-eyed chroniclers of the whole tragedy was Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Her work focused on the gruesome human-rights abuses committed during the war, particularly those allegedly carried out by the forces of Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan, former Chechen separatists who switched sides to fight on the side of the Russian government.   

Politkovskaya endured threats, detention and an apparent poisoning while covering the crisis in the north Caucasus. And on October 7, 2006, she was murdered outside her apartment in Moscow, shot dead at close range.  

The day before the award of the Nobel Peace Prize marked the 15th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s assassination. It was a grim reminder that her murder took place on a day of national significance for Russia: Putin’s birthday falls on October 7.  

Politkovskaya is not Novaya Gazeta’s only martyr to journalism. Speaking to state media, Muratov remembered other colleagues who had died violently: Igor Domnikov, Yury Shchekochikhin, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov and Natalia Estemirova. 

Markelov, a human-rights lawyer, had been investigating human-rights abuses in Chechnya when he was shot and killed in 2009 by a masked gunman. Novaya Gazeta journalist Baburova was also killed in the same incident  

Estemirova, a relentless human-rights researcher who also contributed to Novaya Gazeta, was killed the same year. She was abducted from her home in the Chechen capital of Grozny and her body was discovered the same day in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. She had been a prominent critic of the younger Kadyrov, who had emerged as the region’s pro-Kremlin strongman after the assassination of his father in a bomb attack in 2004. 

More recently, Novaya Gazeta infuriated Kadyrov and the Chechen leadership by breaking the story of the detention of dozens of gay men by the authorities in the republic. Some of those men -- speaking anonymously to CNN for fear of retribution -- said they were subject to brutal abuse in custody. 

As the details emerged, Novaya Gazeta said “its entire staff” was at risk of reprisals. 

Independent journalism has long been a dangerous profession in Russia. But the staff of Novaya Gazeta has continued to dig into some of the Russia’s most politically taboo subjects despite those ever-present threats. 

After winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Ressa said: "The journalists will continue doing our jobs, but there are always repercussions if you do a story someone doesn't like."

She told Reuters on Friday: "I think what our public has realized is that Rappler will keep doing those stories. Journalists will keep doing those stories. And that's what I hope will give us more power to do this."

Watch:

When she received the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa joined a small group of women to be granted the prestigious award -- numbering just 18.

She was also the first woman to be awarded a Nobel prize in any discipline this year.

That so few women have been awarded the Nobel Committee's most illustrious prize in its 126-year history has been the source of increasing criticism.

Confronting that criticism in 2017, the Nobel Committee acknowledged a range of problems that have contributed to its poor record.

"We are disappointed looking at the larger perspective that more women have not been awarded," Göran Hansson, vice chair of the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation, said.

"Part of it is that we go back in time to identify discoveries. We have to wait until they have been verified and validated, before we can award the prize. There was an even larger bias against women then. There were far fewer women scientists if you go back 20 or 30 years."

Hansson also listed steps the committee would take, starting in 2018, to close the gender gap and decrease potential bias, especially in the nomination process.

After the announcement of the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday, Claes Gustafsson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, told CNN: "We don't have any direct discussions with other committees about who wins the prize, but we do have discussions about how to support and increase women and it's also important to support geographic diversity."

Of the 18 women awarded the Peace Prize, Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian writer and leading figure in the pacifist movement in Europe, was the first. She received the prize in 1905. It wasn't until 26 years later that the next woman was awarded. Jane Addams, a pioneering social worker in the United States, who championed the rights of women and children, was granted the prize jointly with Nicholas Murray Butler, who helped establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in 1931.

Other women to have been recognized with the Nobel Prize include Mother Teresa in 1979, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee in 2011, Pakistani advocate for girls' education Malala Yousafzai in 2014 and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad in 2018.

Congratulations for journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov are pouring in from press freedom organizations around the world after the pair won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) congratulated the recipients in a tweet, adding that this news "sheds light on the emergency to defend those who work to provide us with independent and reliable information. Journalism is under threats as shown by the World Press Freedom."

Anti-corruption organization Transparency International said the prize recognizes "investigative journalists' crucial role in the betterment of our societies!"

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists also chimed in:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee phone called journalist Maria Ressa ahead of a formal announcement to inform her that she was going to be one of the 2021 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

As she heard the news, she said, "Oh my god!"

When asked if she had any immediate reaction to share, she said, "I'm speechless! Thank you so very much."

She was told that she would be sharing the prize with another candidate but was not told who it would be.

Hear the moment:

Dmitry Muratov, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, said the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded is a testament to the newspaper's dedication to free speech and his colleagues who have died fighting for it, Russian state media TASS reports.

Anna Politkovskaya, once a leading voice in Russia reporting on the Chechnya war for Novaya Gazeta, was killed 15 years ago on Thursday. Muratov and other former colleagues commemorated Politkovskaya in a ceremony outside the newspaper's offices in Moscow.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Politkovskaya repeatedly received death threats and was attacked for her investigative reporting, including in a purported poisoning attempt. She was renowned for her critical coverage of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Politkovskaya was 48 when she was shot dead at her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006, on Putin's 54th birthday.

Fifteen years after her death, her assessment of independent journalism and media in Russia remains pertinent.

"If you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial -- whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit," she wrote in her 2004 book "Putin's Russia."