WASHINGTON, DC, March 5, 2021 – A number of our #OXIcourage award recipients have been featured prominently in recent world news headlines.
Last Friday, February 26, a U.S. intelligence report was released finding that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of 2019 #OXIcourage Award recipient and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The 2018 assassination of Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey and the brutality of his death, detailed in news reports at the time, shocked the world.
Now Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Menendez, introduced Khashoggi and activist Mohamed Soltan accepted the #OXIcourage Award on Khashoggi’s behalf. Of Khashoggi, Menendez said:
“[I am] a believer in the power of our democratic values and the courage of those who are willing to defend it. Around the world and even here in the United States these values are under assault. We must do everything we can to elevate those voices speaking truth to power. Who in the face of grave injustice are standing up and saying ‘no.’“
To watch this introduction and the acceptance speech by Soltan, please click here.
On March 2, another U.S. intelligence report was declassified finding that one of Russia’s leading intelligence agencies (FSB) orchestrated the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalnyand the first sanctions against the Russian government for the attack and his imprisonment were announced.
This followed a February 11 report identifying the Russian FSB operatives likely responsible for the two poisoning attempts on the life of 2018 #OXIcourage Award recipient and Russian democracy activist Vladamir Kara-Murza. In a compelling op ed in the Washington Post Kara-Murza wrote:
“It’s one thing to know, in a general way, that someone has tried to murder you — and it’s quite another to be shown the names and photographs of these people.”
To watch Kara-Murza’s #OXIcourage Award acceptance speech please click here. To watch Kara-Murza’s introduction by Michael Psaros, please click here.
On March 13, a documentary featuring the courage of 2019 #OXIcourage Award recipient and journalist Maria Ressa, will be shown in the Philippines. Because no broadcaster in the Philippines was willing to air it, for the first time in its four-decade history, Frontline has bought out a documentary’s distribution rights to make it directly available in the Philippines.
“A Thousand Cuts,” chronicling Ressa’s arrest and the legal campaign against her will be available free online on YouTube, as well as the show’s website. To see a trailer for the film, please click here.
On February 3, Ressa was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. The 2018 Time Person of the Year who is a favorite target of pro-Duterte troll armies has turned into an international ambassador for the fight against online disinformation and press restrictions in the Philippines.
Ressa, who was nominated for the #OXIcouage Award by her attorney, Amal Clooney, was introduced by Danialle Karmanos as:
“A journalist who is sacrificing her freedom so each of us can live in a world that is closer to the truth…She has the courage to take on corruption and the determination to expose the truth. She has a nearly incomprehensible fearlessness in the face of almost constant death threats and intimidation.”
To watch the Karmanos introduction and Ressa’s acceptance speech, click here.