Barents Observer wins Sønsteby Award for defending democratic values
The Barents Observer has distinguished itself through its ability to deliver critical and independent journalism at a time of great tensions between Russia and the rest of Europe, the Gunnar Sønsteby Memorial Fund states in the announcement.
The prize is named after Gunnar Sønsteby, Norway’s most decorated war hero, and is awarded annually to individuals or organisations who are brave defenders of fundamental democratic values. For 2025, the award is shared equally between NRK’s Beirut-based journalist Yama Wolasmal and the Kirkenes-based Barents Observer. The Memorial Fund writes that the Barents Observer gives a unique insight into an area of especial importance to Norway. “By connecting regional events to global trends, the Barents Observer has contributed to a deeper understanding of how the war in Ukraine and Russia’s authoritarian line affect the northern regions,” the award announcement reads. “In an era where independent journalism is constantly facing new challenges, the Barents Observer has set a high standard for fact-checking and accountability,” the Sønsteby Memorial Fund says and points to the newspaper’s ability to maintain critical reporting about developments in Northwest-Russia “despite increasing threats against independent journalists.” “For The Barents Observer, this has directly affected its work and employees.
Nevertheless, the newspaper has shown courage by hiring Russian journalists in exile.” The Sønsteby Prize has been awarded every year since 2015. Among the winners are journalists, publishers, artists, human rights defenders and military organisations. In 2022, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg won the award. Gunnar Sønsteby (1918-2012) was a member of the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation of Norway in World War II. Throughout the post war years and particularly after his retirement, Sønsteby gave many lectures in an effort to pass on the lessons of the Second World War to future generations.
A great honor Atle Staalesen, journalist and founder of the Barents Observer, says the prize is a great recognition of the work of the newspaper. “I felt deeply honored when I learned that we have been chosen as winners of the Sønsteby Award.” “We in the Barents Observer have always emphasized the importance of independent journalism as a core value in democratic societies,” he says. “In our history of reporting, we have seen how these values have eroded as Putin over the last 25 years has paved Russia’s way towards hybrid totalitarianism. Freedom to report independently has also been challenged on our side of the Norwegian-Russian borderland,” Staalesen says. In 2014, Russia’s security service, the FSB, requested Norwegian officials to shut down the Barents Observer.
In 2015, regional politicians in northern Norway attempted to remove the newsroom's rights to report under editorial freedom. Neither the Russians nor the north-Norwegians succeeded. The Barents Observer was founded as a English-Russian language news-online in 2002 and is today a non-profit fully owned by its reporting staff. In 2017, the newspaper's editor Thomas Nilsen was declared persona non grata by FSB. Two years later, the Barents Observer became the first Norwegian media to be blocked on the internet in Russia.
In late 2022, after the Barents Observer established a hub with four exiled Russian journalists, the Kremlin's General Prosecutor requested a full closure of the newspaper. Journalism key to debug disinformation Editor Thomas Nilsen says the Sønsteby Award is a strong recognition of freedom of the press. “Journalists under attack by Russia’s repressive authorities all have one thing in common: They have done nothing wrong,” Nilsen states. “Journalism is no crime. The crime is Russia’s full-scale invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine.
The crime is the crackdown on freedom of speech and independent journalism in Russia,” he make clear. The editor says Putin and his war crime compatriots know perfectly well that domestic support for the military attack on Ukraine would not be possible if free journalism existed. “Independent media would debug Putin’s increasingly paranoid worldview that now is killing Ukrainians and sending tens of thousands of Russian men to their deaths as cannon fodder,” Nilsen says. Atle Staalesen adds: “The Sønsteby Award is a strong encouragement to continue strengthen our exile Russian journalist hub. Free reporting by us, in Russian language, for an audience that can't get independent journalism from domestic media is more important than ever.”
