The UN’s cultural agency has awarded its annual press freedom prize to the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa whose reporting has made her a target of her country’s judiciary and online hate campaigns. She has been involved in many international initiatives to promote press freedom, and arrested several times “for alleged crimes related to the exercise of her profession”, Unesco said. She has also been subject to a sustained campaign of gendered online abuse, threats, and harassment, the agency said in a statement. “Maria Ressa’s unerring fight for freedom of expression is an example for many journalists around the world,” jury chair Marilu Mastrogiovanni said in the statement. “Her case is emblematic of global trends that represent a real threat to press freedom, and therefore to democracy,” Mastrogiovanni said.

Source: The Guardian April 28, 2021 01:40 UTC