Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalists – Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov –, recognized for their struggles for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia, received their awards at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, this Friday (10). despite high Covid-19 rates in Norway.
Receiving the award from Oslo City Hall, Ressa, who is co-founder of the news site Rappler, reiterated her call for social media reform.
“Our greatest need today is to transform this hatred and violence, the toxic sludge that is flowing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading this hatred and unleashing the worst in us,” she said. .
Muratov, editor-in-chief of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said journalism in Russia is “going through a dark valley”, with more than a hundred journalists, media, human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations being labeled as agents foreign.
“In Russia, that means ‘enemies of the people,”’ Muratov said, dedicating his prize to all investigative journalists and Novaya Gazeta colleagues killed because of their work.
Ressa and Muratov are the first journalists to receive the Nobel Prize since the German Carl von Ossietzky won the 1935 prize for revealing his country’s secret weapons program.
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to the UN’s World Food Program (FAO) and its director general, who also attended the ceremony in Oslo this Friday.
He called for an end to famine, warning nations that it would be destabilized and the mass migration that could happen if the problem were not effectively addressed.
The ceremony at Oslo City Hall was held with fewer guests than planned due to government restrictions put in place this week. Norway set a record for daily Covid-19 cases this Thursday (9).
In Sweden, where infection rates are lower than in Norway, organizers in September canceled in-person Nobel ceremonies for the second year in a row.
Instead, the 2021 winners in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Economics, all awarded in Sweden, received their diplomas and medals in their home countries, while the traditional Nobel lectures were all delivered online.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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