It was sung. Central Africa: Russian 'soft power', an audiovisual work by French journalists Carol Valade and Clémence di Roma, has been awarded today in Strasbourg with the 2022 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for journalism.
Again, thus, the European Parliament puts its focus on Putin's Russia. But this time on the darkest side of him, the less obvious but real: his propaganda strategy rehearsed in the Central African Republic at the hands of the Wagner group of mercenaries.
The authors investigated it on the ground. “They are still there; the danger against freedom of expression is everywhere”, Valade added when collecting his award in front of the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who, for her part, expressed: “Defending the free press is defending democracy” .
Shortly before, in addition, he announced the Sakharov Prize for freedom of conscience of the European Parliament, which has awarded the "brave Ukrainian people" in their citizen resistance against the Russian invasion of the country.
(In 2021 it went to the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny. In 2020, to the Belarusian democratic opposition. In 2018 to the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, opponent of the Kremlin and prominent critic of the annexation of Crimea in 2014. He spent years in prison in Russia.)
With the Daphne Caruana Galizia, Strasbourg further emphasizes the dangers to freedom of the press and media pluralism that it sees near its borders through Ukraine, according to a quote. It also occurs on the fifth anniversary of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was investigating corruption in Maltese institutions.
“The European authorities have to learn from what made it possible for my mother to be assassinated”, defended Matthew Caruana Galizia, her son, in the previous seminar on Safeguarding media freedom and the role of the EU in a full room. “And chasing it across borders is even more difficult, even if you want to do it,” he continued.
Pina Picierno, vice president of the European Parliament, added in turn: "The terrible invasion has turned European priorities upside down", "Putin puts part of his hybrid war in disinformation and in creating adversity". The award acts accordingly.
In its first edition, Daphne Caruana Galizia ended up in the hands of the Forbidden Stories consortium of journalists after uncovering the Pegasus espionage network, which spied on thousands of phone numbers, including political leaders, around the world. Including Spain.
Today the work of Valade and Di Roma has prevailed over other finalists who define the current critical moment for freedom of the press and expression, whether due to the lasting consequences of the Russian war in Chechnya, the growing relevance of the extreme right, the financial scandals or the role of China.
