CPJ International Press Freedom Awards

The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honor journalists or their publications around the world who show courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment.[1] Established in 1991, the awards are administered by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-governmental organization based in New York City.[2] In addition to recognizing individuals, the organization seeks to focus local and international media coverage on countries where violations of press freedom are particularly serious.[3]

International Press Freedom Awards
Awarded forcourage in defending press freedom in the face of attacks, threats or imprisonment
LocationNew York City
CountryUnited States
Presented byCommittee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
First awarded1991
WebsiteAwards website

Every November four to seven individuals or publications are honored at a banquet in New York City and given an award.[4] The ceremony also honors the winner of the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for "lifelong work to advance press freedom".[5] Past hosts have included crime correspondent and former hostage Terry A. Anderson,[6] Amanpour host Christiane Amanpour,[7] and NBC Nightly News anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw.[1][3] In 1998, the ceremony was briefly disrupted by protesters who unfurled a banner calling for the release of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania's death row.[8]

History

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The first awards were given in 1991 to American photojournalist Bill Foley and his wife, journalist Cary Vaughan; Cameroonian reporter Pius Njawé; Chinese dissidents Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming; Russian television news anchor Tatyana Mitkova; and Guatemalan reporter Byron Barrera.[9] In 2014, the organization awarded its twenty-fourth group of journalists.[10] On three occasions, an award was also given to a news organization of which multiple staffers have been at risk: Tajikistan newspaper Navidi Vakhsh (1994), several reporters of which murdered during the 1992–1997 civil war;[11] Guatemalan newspaper Siglo Veintiuno (1995), which was subject to police and army raids for its uncensored coverage of government corruption and human rights violations;[12] and Turkish newspaper Özgür Gündem (1996), which was subject to a campaign of publication bans, assassinations, and arrests for its reporting on the conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.[13]

Occasionally, imprisoned laureates accept their awards at a later ceremony, such as China's Jiang Weiping, who was awarded in 2001 but attended the ceremony in 2009,[14] and Azerbaijan's Eynulla Fatullayev, who was awarded in 2009 but attended the ceremony in 2011.[5] Sri Lankan reporter J. S. Tissainayagam was also awarded in 2009 while imprisoned, but was released in time to attend the 2010 ceremony, quipping in his acceptance speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for being late."[3]

The award was given posthumously on three occasions: to David Kaplan, an ABC News producer killed by a sniper in Sarajevo in 1992;[6] to Paul Klebnikov, a Russian Forbes journalist shot to death in 2004 by unknown attackers;[15] and to Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi journalist for Al Arabiya who was abducted and murdered in February 2006.[16] A number of other laureates had been threatened or attacked in the year preceding their award, such as Guatemalan journalist Byron Barrera (1991), whose wife was murdered in an attack on their car,[17] and Željko Kopanja (2000), who lost his legs in a car bomb.[18] Other laureates have been killed after their awards, such as Irish crime reporter Veronica Guerin (1995), awarded a year before her murder,[19] and Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana (1991), awarded two years before being fatally shot by a US soldier in Iraq.[20] Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes (2002) died while still imprisoned; owing to conflicting reports and the secrecy of his confinement, the cause and year of his death remain unclear.[21]

Recipients

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This list includes the recipients of the award as recorded at the official CPJ website. It is sortable by year, name, and country; owing to naming conventions in different countries, not all names are sorted by last name. Names in italics are publications which have received the award.

 
1991 recipient Tatyana Mitkova
 
1993 recipient Veran Matić
 
1998 recipient Goenawan Mohamad
 
2007 recipient Dmitry Muratov
 
2008 recipient Andrew Mwenda
 
2011 recipient Mansoor Al-Jamri
 
2020 recipient Shahidul Alam
 
2005 recipient Beatrice Mtetwa
Key
Award received posthumously
Recipients by year and country
Year Honorees Country Ref.
1991 Bill Foley and Cary Vaughan   United States [9]
Pius Njawé   Cameroon [9]
Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming   People's Republic of China [9]
Tatyana Mitkova   Russia [9]
Byron Barrera   Guatemala [9]
1992 David Kaplan   United States [9]
Mohammed Al-Sager   Kuwait [9]
Sony Esteus   Haiti [9]
Gwendolyn Lister   Namibia [9]
Thepchai Yong   Thailand [9]
1993 Omar Belhouchet   Algeria [9]
Đoàn Viết Hoạt   Vietnam [9]
Nosa Igiebor   Nigeria [9]
Veran Matić   Serbia [9]
Ricardo Uceda   Peru [9]
1994 Iqbal Athas   Sri Lanka [9]
Aziz Nesin   Turkey [9]
Yndamiro Restano   Cuba [9]
Daisy Li Yuet-Wah   Hong Kong [9]
Navidi Vakhsh   Tajikistan [9]
1995 Yevgeny Kiselyov   Russia [9]
José Rubén Zamora Marroquín and Siglo Veintiuno   Guatemala [9]
Fred M'membe   Zambia [9]
Ahmad Taufik   Indonesia [9]
Veronica Guerin   Ireland [9]
1996 Yusuf Jameel   India [9]
Jesús Blancornelas   Mexico [9]
Daoud Kuttab   Palestine [9]
Ocak Işık Yurtçu and Özgür Gündem   Turkey [9]
1997 Christine Anyanwu   Nigeria [22]
Ying Chan and Shieh Chung-liang   Hong Kong, China,   Republic of China (Taiwan) [22]
Freedom Neruda   Ivory Coast [22]
Viktor Ivančić   Croatia [22]
Yelena Masyuk   Russia [22]
1998 Grémah Boucar   Niger [23]
Gustavo Gorriti   Peru [23]
Goenawan Mohamad   Indonesia [23]
Pavel Sheremet   Belarus [23]
Ruth Simon   Eritrea [23]
1999 Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández   Cuba [24]
Jesús Barraza Zavala   Mexico [24]
Baton Haxhiu   Kosovo [24]
Jugnu Mohsin and Najam Sethi   Pakistan [24]
María Cristina Caballero   Colombia [24]
2000 Željko Kopanja   Bosnia and Herzegovina [25]
Modeste Mutinga   Democratic Republic of the Congo [25]
Steven Gan   Malaysia [25]
Mashallah Shamsolvaezin   Iran [25]
2001 Jiang Weiping   People's Republic of China [26]
Geoffrey Nyarota   Zimbabwe [26]
Horacio Verbitsky   Argentina [26]
Mazen Dana   Palestine [26]
2002 Ignacio Gómez   Colombia [27]
Tipu Sultan   Bangladesh [27]
Irina Petrushova   Kazakhstan [27]
Fesshaye Yohannes   Eritrea [27]
2003 Abdul Samay Hamed   Afghanistan [28]
Aboubakr Jamaï   Morocco [28]
Musa Muradov   Russia [28]
Manuel Vázquez Portal   Cuba [28]
2004 Svetlana Kalinkina   Belarus [29]
Aung Pwint and Thaung Tun   Burma [29]
Alexis Sinduhije   Burundi [29]
Paul Klebnikov   United States [29]
2005 Galima Bukharbaeva   Uzbekistan [30]
Beatrice Mtetwa   Zimbabwe [30]
Lúcio Flávio Pinto   Brazil [30]
Shi Tao   People's Republic of China [30]
2006 Jesús Abad Colorado   Colombia [31]
Jamal Amer   Yemen [31]
Madi Ceesay   Gambia [31]
Atwar Bahjat   Iraq [31]
2007 Mazhar Abbas   Pakistan [32]
Dmitry Muratov   Russia [32]
Adela Navarro Bello   Mexico [32]
Gao Qinrong   People's Republic of China [32]
2008 Bilal Hussein   Iraq [33]
Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad   Afghanistan [33]
Andrew Mwenda   Uganda [33]
Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez   Cuba [33]
2009 Mustafa Haji Abdinur   Somalia [34]
Naziha Réjiba   Tunisia [34]
Eynulla Fatullayev   Azerbaijan [34]
J. S. Tissainayagam   Sri Lanka [34]
2010 Mohammad Davari   Iran [35]
Nadira Isayeva   Russia [35]
Dawit Kebede   Ethiopia [35]
Laureano Márquez   Venezuela [35]
2011 Mansoor al-Jamri   Bahrain [5]
Natalya Radina   Belarus [5]
Javier Valdez Cárdenas   Mexico [5]
Umar Cheema   Pakistan [5]
2012 Mauri König   Brazil [36]
Dhondup Wangchen   China [36]
Azimzhan Askarov   Kyrgyzstan [36]
Mae Azango   Liberia [36]
2013 Janet Hinostroza   Ecuador [37]
Bassem Youssef   Egypt [37]
Nedim Şener   Turkey [37]
Nguyễn Văn Hải   Vietnam [37]
2014 Mikhail Zygar   Russia [10]
Ferial Haffajee   South Africa [10]
Siamak Ghaderi   Iran [10]
Aung Zaw   Burma [10]
2015 Zulkiflee Anwar Haque   Malaysia [38]
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently   Syria [38]
Cándido Figueredo Ruíz   Paraguay [38]
Zone 9 Bloggers   Ethiopia [38]
2016 Mahmoud Abou Zeid   Egypt [39]
Malini Subramaniam   India [39]
Can Dündar   Turkey [39]
Óscar Martínez   El Salvador [39]
2017 Pravit Rojanaphruk   Thailand [40]
Ahmed Abba   Cameroon [40]
Patricia Mayorga   Mexico [40]
Afrah Nasser   Yemen [40]
2018 Amal Habani   Sudan [41]
Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh   Vietnam [41]
Luz Mely Reyes   Venezuela [41]
Anastasia Stanko   Ukraine [41]
2019 Neha Dixit   India [42]
Patrícia Campos Mello   Brazil [42]
Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora   Nicaragua [42]
Maxence Melo Mubyazi   Tanzania [42]
2020 Shahidul Alam   Bangladesh [43]
Mohammad Mosaed   Iran [43]
Dapo Olorunyomi   Nigeria [43]
Svetlana Prokopyeva   Russia [43]
2021 Katsiaryna Barysevich   Belarus [44]
Anastasia Mejía   Guatemala [44]
Matías Guente   Mozambique [44]
Aye Chan Naing   Myanmar [44]
2022 Abraham Jiménez Enoa   Cuba [45]
Niyaz Abdullah   Iraq [45]
Sevgil Musayeva   Ukraine [45]
Phạm Đoan Trang   Vietnam [45]
2023 Nika Gvaramia   Georgia [46]
Anastasia Mejía   Netherlands [46]
Matías Guente   Mozambique [46]
Aye Chan Naing   Myanmar [46]
Ferdinand Ayité   Togo [46]

References

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