The Court Has Allowed Maria Ressa to Travel to Oslo to Receive Her Nobel Peace Prize
The Court of Appeals has allowed Rappler CEO Maria Ressa to travel to Oslo, Norway, to personally accept her Nobel Peace Prize for 2021.
According to a Rappler report, The CA’s Special Seventh Division issued a resolution Friday, December 3, granting Ressa’s motion to travel so she can make it in time for the ceremony on December 10.
In the resolution penned by Justices Geraldine Fiel Macaraig, Ruben Reynaldo Roxas, and Raymond Reynold Lauigan, it was said that travel for a Nobel Prize was “necessary and urgent.”
“Under the circumstances, Ressa cannot just utilize any available technological application, and the necessity of her presence at the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony is reasonably explained. In fact, there is no option, for her to virtually receive the award, or through a representative,” they wrote.
Ressa was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in February 2021. The Prize was jointly awarded to her and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov for their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Muratov leads Russia's critical newspaper Nuvaya Gazeta, which reports on human rights violations and government corruption under Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Ressa is the first-ever Filipino to be honored with a Nobel Prize. Ressa and her team at Rappler have reported extensively on the Duterte administration's war on drugs and the spread of misinformation in the country.
U.N. Urges the Philippines to Allow Maria Ressa to Receive Her Nobel Peace Prize
On November 29, 2021, the United Nations urged the Philippines to allow Ressa to travel to receive her Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the United Nations was “very concerned” about travel restrictions placed on Ressa by the government, according to a report by Reuters.
“We urge the government of the Philippines to immediately withdraw any such restrictions and allow her to travel to Oslo,” Dujarric told reporters in New York.
