Stockholm
The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia.
They were cited for their fight for the freedom of expression.The winners were announced on Friday by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” said Reiss-Andersen.
“Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully pro-mote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time.”
Ressa in 2012 co-founded Rappler, a news web-site that has focused “critical attention on the [President Rodrigo] Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign”, the Nobel commit-tee said.
Muratov was one of the founders of the inde-pendent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in 1993.
Novaya Gazeta is the most independent news-paper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power,” the Nobel committee said.—AP
