It is today in Oslo that the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize will be officially awarded, Friday December 10, 2021, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. It is a double award ceremony since the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to two journalists: the Filipina Maria Ressa and the Russian Dimitri Mouratov. Both are known for their commitment to human rights and freedom of expression. Dimitri Muratov, 60, is the editorial director of Novaïa Gazeta, the main opposition newspaper in Russia. A newspaper known for having revealed many scandals: corruption, dysfunctions of justice, abuses by the army. A commitment that six of its journalists paid with their lives, murdered between 2000 and 2009, including Anna Politkovskaya. Dimitiri Mouratov spoke to our correspondent in Moscow, Sylvain Tronchet, before receiving his award and delivering his recipient’s speech.
franceinfo: The name of Novaya Gazeta has often been mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize. Did you expect it this year?
Dimitiri Muratov: Everything about the Nobel Prize is the subject of rumors. There are even bookmakers who take bets. Everyone pretends to know who is in the short list. And not once in the past few years has one of these predictions been confirmed. I do know, however, that we have been nominated for the Nobel Prize more than once. Reuters, which is believed to be close to the Nobel Committee, came here and waited in the lobby on the day the prize was announced three or four times. This year Reuters didn’t show up, so I figured something could happen!
Do you think that the awarding of this prize is linked to the situation of the independent press in Russia?
Yes. Over the past two years, the problems of the Russian media have increased dramatically. More than 90 individuals, media and human rights organizations have already been declared “foreign agents” [Ce statut, décrété par le gouvernement russe rend pratiquement impossible la poursuite d’activités journalistiques ou militantes à ceux qui en font l’objet en raison des contraintes qu’il impose]. In short, enemies of the people. In 1922 we had the “boat of the philosophers”, on which 227 people were expelled. [le régime soviétique a expulsé par bateau des intellectuels et leurs familles]. Among them was the future inventor of helicopters Igor Sikorsky, the writers Nicolas Berdiaev and Ivan Iline … Today is not the “philosopher’s boats “, but the “journalists plane”. It is the expulsion of intellectuals from the country.
Do you know why Novaya Gazeta escapes for the moment this institutional repression which has forced several independent media to close?
It’s a question I get asked all the time. I have already tried to answer it in different ways but the reality is I don’t know. But I know something else. A price, in general, is an outcome. In football, for example, when PSG or Lyon have won titles, they can go to rest. In our case, it is the other way around.
“We have discovered that being a Nobel Prize is a huge task.”
Dmitry Muratovto franceinfo
The day after the Nobel Committee announcement, I received dozens and dozens of letters. People would send me court rulings, tell me that they had no housing, no wheelchair, no medicine because they were too expensive … We can’t help but answer them. We are thinking about how to do this as efficiently as possible.