2021 Nobel Peace Prize winners have faced a year of battles

WASHINGTON (AP) — Winning the Nobel Peace Prize often provides a boost for a grassroots activist or international group working for peace and human rights, opening doors and elevating the causes for which they fight. But it doesn't always work out that way.

For the two journalists who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, the past year has not been easy.

Dmitry Muratov of Russia and Maria Ressa of the Philippines have been fighting for the survival of their news organizations, defying government efforts to silence them. The two were honored last year for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

Muratov, the longtime editor of newspaper Novaya Gazeta, saw the situation for independent media in Russia turn from bad to worse following Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. A week later it removed much of the war reporting from its website in response to a new Russian law, which threatened jail terms of up to 15 years for publishing information disparaging the Russian military or deemed to be “fake.”

That could include mention of Russian forces harming civilians or suffering losses on the battlefield. All other major independent Russian media either closed down or had their websites blocked. Many Russian journalists left the country. But Novaya Gazeta held out, printing three issues a week and reaching what Muratov said were 27 million readers in March.

Finally, on March 28, after two warnings from Russia's media regulator, the paper announced it was suspending publication for the duration of the war. A team of its journalists, however, started a new project from abroad, calling it Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Muratov has kept the newspaper going through many trying times since it was founded in 1993. The paper has...