CEO at the Association of Independent Regional Press Publishers of Ukraine Oksana Brovko spoke at the Evening of Press Freedom (Abend der Pressefreiheit) in Berlin on May 6 during the 2026 Press Freedom Prize ceremony, where the award was presented to the family of Jimmy Lai — a Hong Kong publisher and one of the most prominent political prisoners of our time. The award was received by his son, Sebastian Lai.
Below is the text of her speech.
«Sometimes, when there is silence in a prison, you can hear it across continents. It is the silence where a voice should be. The voice of Jimmy Lai.
Today, standing here in Berlin, I think we should listen to that silence. Because it says more than anything we could add.
We often describe freedom as something stable, something protected. But it doesn’t — it exists only as long as we keep acting on it.
Jimmy Lai understood this. He could have left. That would have made sense. But he didn’t. He stayed to continue his mission to tell the truth, even from prison. At that moment, this stops being about journalism as a profession. It becomes a position.
When freedom is at stake, priorities change, and journalism becomes central to how people defines truth. Through independent media, people can understand reality, make choices, and shape the direction of their society. He understood this and he acted on it.
His newspaper was shut down. Journalists were prosecuted. And at some point, journalism itself became evidence. He was not only put on trial as a person. He was put on trial as a publisher, as a newsroom, as an idea.
Somewhere tonight, Jimmy Lai is in a cell where there is no newsroom, no printing press, no audience. But the idea he stood for is in this room.
He once said: «If we stop telling the truth, we stop being free.»
I come from Ukraine — a country where this is very real. Where journalism is often a very concrete decision: to continue working on a story or evacuate your newsroom; to deliver your print newspaper yourself to readers in a kill zone — or to close it. Not because of pressure, not because someone tells you not to publish but because a Russian missile or drones can interrupt that story at any moment. It can destroy your newsroom, the printing house where your newspaper was supposed to be printed or kill you.
Many Ukrainian journalists no longer mark themselves as press. More and more, the word «PRESS» on your bullet proof vest makes you visible targets for Russian drones. It starts to feel like a kind of human safari.
For us — it’s not only about what you publish. It’s about whether you will be able to publish at all.
Sometimes, the choice becomes even sharper. In Ukraine, a lot of journalists have had to leave their newsrooms and take on a different role — to protect the homeland, because when the alternative is losing freedom, people choose to defend it.
But still, most decisions do not look like that. Most of them are much quieter. «Not now», «maybe later», «do we really need this story?» If you hear that often enough, it starts to sound reasonable. That is how the line of freedom moves — quietly, until you barely notice it has changed.
A couple of days ago my colleague from Odesa sent me a message: «Every morning — usually after a night of attacks like tonight — I ask myself: is there even a place to go to work?» And then she goes, opens the newsroom, turns on the lights — if there is electricity — and continues. Because these are the small acts we can still choose.
We choose to act.
This is what it looks like: not declarations and not slogans. Just people who continue.
This award is about Jimmy Lai. But it is also about something bigger. It is about that moment when a person decides not to step back.
Because silence is never neutral. Silence always serves someone.
And in the end, it is quite simple. What we do when it becomes difficult.
Freedom is not lost when it is attacked. It is lost when we decide not to defend it.
Thank you».
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