Maria Ressa, co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, has said she faces charges from her government that could put her in jail for “about 100 years”.

Speaking on Friday during the Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, Ressa, a Filipino journalist, decried attempts by the Rodrigo Duterte-led government to jail her for violating a law that “didn’t even exist” at the time she allegedly violated it.

Ressa said, “In less than 2 years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. I’ve had to post bail 10 times just to do my job. Last year, I and a former colleague were convicted of cyber libel for a story we published 8 years earlier, at a time the law we allegedly violated didn’t even exist. All told, the charges I face could send me to jail for about 100 years.

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“But, the more I was attacked for my journalism, the more resolute I became. I had first-hand evidence of abuse of power. What was meant to intimidate me and Rappler only strengthened us.”

Rappler, a media platform she co-founded in 2012, has had its licence suspended by the Philippines government as her long-drawn battle with the state continues.

Her ordeal is further heightened by the fact that she needed permission from a judge to leave the country in order to receive her award in Norway.

“I didn’t know if I was going to be here today. Every day, I live with the real threat of spending the rest of my life in jail just because I’m a journalist. When I go home, I have no idea what the future holds, but it’s worth the risk,” she added during her speech.

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Ressa condemned Duterte’s “drug war and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook,” and called for more efforts to sanitise social media use.

She shares the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Dmitry Muratov, a Russian investigative journalist.