We stand by your side!

2 March 2022. We pay our deepest respect and support for our M100 Media Award laureate Vitali Klitschko, his brother Wladimir, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and all the brave Ukrainian who fiercely defended themselves and stood in front of the Russian tanks and fight for freedom, democracy,human rights and a free Ukraine!

Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir tirelessly send messages to the world. They post their appeals on social media, give interviews in Ukrainian, Russian, English and German. Demonstrate strength, stay by their people’s side and give them courage. Calling on international partners around the world to stand by Ukraine “in this senseless war that will have no winners, only losers”.

Vitali Klitschko – like President Zelenskyy – was often ridiculed and discredited as incompetent and corrupt. Those days are over. They are at the top of Putin’s death list, but they refuse to leave their country, their people.

“I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelenskyy replied to the Americans who offered to take him out of the country.

They are heroes who deserve all our respect and support.

And we pay respect to the Russian people who are taking to the streets against Putin, and to the independent journalists like Natalia Sindeeva, M100 Media Award laureate 2017, who have been reporting the truth for many years against the greatest odds and despite danger to life and limb, and who long for freedom and democracy. Many have already been guests at the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium and the M100YEJ in Potsdam. We also stand by your side.

#WeStandWithUkraine #StayWithUkraine #FreeNavalny

I am very moved, especially because I was not expecting to hear these words, which are like an embrace for me. So I want to thank you for this award, for the incredibly moving words of Giovanni di Lorenzo, for this wonderful sky that has welcomed me to Potsdam, and also to thank the Federal Chancellor for her touching words, and for her encouraging presence. Because the awareness raised heartens me a lot more than words. Roberto Saviano, M100 Media Award laureate 2016
It is a great honour for me to be here and receive this great price. It's a very big day for me. I thank Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dr. Joachim Gauck for the kind and strong words, and for their appreciation. Thank you, I will never forget this day! Kurt Westergaard, danish cartoonist, M100 Media Award laureate 2010
At the same time, today’s prize is an appeal to all persons who hold positions of responsibility in governments, in culture and in the media: be steadfast, value-oriented and also COURAGEOUS when irresponsible persons and powers undermine or relativise our values of freedom. It is a virtue to yield to a convincing argument, but it is cowardice to yield to a threat from enemies of freedom. Joachim Gauck in his laudation to Kurt Westergaard, 2010
I receive [this award] with an immense joy, happiness and humility also, because I think by being with you today here, I am receiving this price in the name of those who are still suffering in the jungle of Colombia and of those in the world that are living in similar conditions and who cannot speak for themselves freely. Ingrid Betancourt, M100 Media Award laureate 2008
But I have to say that in our modern society the media has a very, very particular responsibility, also for the European idea. And I hope that the event today – and the events which will follow – will help us to communicate better, to explain better and to convince people that Europe – and acknowledging all the problems, the mistakes and the deficits – […] that at the end of the day the idea of European integration is the best idea that we have ever developed in our history. Günther Verheugen, former EU-Commissioner, in his keynote speech 2005

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