This week’s article originally appeared as a guest opinion in The Cap Times

https://captimes.com/opinion/guest-columns/opinion-journalists-risking-their-lives-for-freedom-of-the-press/article_f4d3cb01-bf88-53d6-9044-cf35532eb629.html

On Oct. 8, the Norway Nobel Committee selected as its 2021 Peace Prize winners Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa, courageous journalists living and working in Russia and the Philippines, respectively. For the sake of the free press, they are defying iron-fisted autocrats and risking their lives.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia keeps a guillotine blade perched over the heads of the regime’s critics. We know well the story of Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny, now imprisoned following his near death due to poisoning. It is chilling to report that Russian journalists also have been targeted for attacks.

Since the year 2000, at least 34 Russian journalists have perished in politically motivated killings. Included among these is Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 by five contract killers. Her murder followed reports documenting the devastating impact of Russia’s Chechen War on ordinary soldiers, their mothers, children and the elderly.

Nobel laureate awardee Muratov is the long-time editor-in-chief of the same news outlet for which Politkovskaya reported, Novaya Gazeta (New Gazette). He modestly accepted his award by saying, “I can’t take credit for this. This is Novaya Gazeta’s.”

In the Philippines, Maria Ressa, a diminutive woman, has stood tall in verbally confronting President Rodrigo Duterte and documenting the enormous brutality that he has unleashed. Elected in 2015, Duterte immediately launched a two-pronged war: killing off poor people suspected of being drug users, and issuing lethal threats against reporters who ask confrontive questions.

For those not familiar with Duterte, the PBS-acquired documentary “A Thousand Cuts” is readily available on the web. In it, we quickly learn that Duterte has boasted “I must admit I have killed,” and telling investigative journalists, “If you end up dead, it’s your fault.”

Rappler, the digital news organization founded by Ressa, has shown the world how Duterte fights this war. He has empowered both the police and vigilante groups to shoot on sight anyone they suspect of drug use. Rappler reported that, early in the Duterte years, eight kills a day was the norm. “Violence is my strength,” Duterte declares, adding, “Just because you’re a journalist, you think you are exempt from assassination — you’re not.” Targeting women at press conferences, he has told rape jokes.

Fighting back, Maria Ressa has been arrested twice and posted bail eight times. She has been accused of fraud, tax evasion and receiving money from the CIA. In June of 2020, Ressa and a former Rappler colleague were convicted of “cyber libel.” They now face up to six years in prison.

Our own country has not been immune from politically motivated violence and threats against journalists. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump, borrowing a phrase used previously by Lenin and Goebbels, labeled responsible news organizations “the enemy of the people” and made light of Russia’s killing of journalists in the Putin era. The years following saw several attacks against journalists at Trump rallies.

In 2018, Trump lavished praise on Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Montana, for body-slamming a reporter. And on Jan. 6, pro-Trump rioters at the Capitol issued bodily threats to reporters who were covering the violent insurrection.

The Center to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports, “At least 110 journalists were arrested or criminally charged in relation to their reporting, and around 300 journalists were assaulted in 2020, the majority by law enforcement, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, of which CPJ is a founding member. The Tracker is working to verify more than 930 total incidents in 79 cities.”

There is a massive push in many countries to replace teetering democracy with iron-fisted rule. Independent journalism is often the last bastion of freedom. Dmitry Muratov, Maria Ressa and journalists everywhere who stand up to attacks on their freedom and to threats against their very lives should be receiving our support, our thoughts and our prayers.