Press Freedom Award: these are the nominees
Among nominees for the 2021 Press Freedom Awards is Chinese lawyer turned journalist Zhang Zhan who was one of the first to report about the outbreak of Covid in the city of Wuhan in February 2020. She was in December 2020 sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. RSF says that Zhang Zhan despite constant threats from the authorities, live-streamed video reports on YouTube, WeChat and Twitter, showing the city’s streets and hospitals, and the harassment to which the families of the sick were subjected.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published the shortlist of nominees for the awards to be decided on 18 November. Journalists and media outlets from 11 countries have been nominated for the awards that will be given in three categories – journalistic courage, impact and independence.
The 12 nominees (four in each category) consist of six journalists, four of whom are women, and six media outlets or journalists’ organisations. They include specialists in investigative journalism in countries where the right to inform is drastically curtailed or is under threat – Belarus, China, Brazil, Turkey and Northern Ireland (United Kingdom).
Nominees for the Prize for Courage:
KAY ZON NWAY (MYANMAR) This young but seasoned reporter is a symbol of the courageous fight for the freedom to inform on the ground in Myanmar.” She works for Myanmar Now, a media outlet that has itself played a historic role in the long fight for press freedom in Myanmar
PATRICIA DEVLIN, NORTHERN IRELAND (UK) A journalist on the crime beat with the Sunday World, currently based in Belfast but she has worked all over the island of Ireland. She has faced enormous pressure and demonstrated tremendous courage in her reporting on organised crime and paramilitary activities.
CONFIDENCIAL (NICARAGUA) Confidencial is a Nicaraguan weekly newspaper founded in 1996, known for its investigative journalism and one of the few non-official media outlets that remains in the country. On May 20, the government of Daniel Ortega raided the editorial offices, founded by journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro.
Nominees for the Prize for impact:
PEGASUS PROJECT (INTERNATIONAL) The project is an investigation by an international consortium of more than 80 journalists from 17 media outlets in 11 different countries that was coordinated by the NGO Forbidden Stories with technical support from experts at Amnesty International’s Security Lab. Based on a leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers targeted by Pegasus, spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group, the Pegasus Project revealed that nearly 200 journalists were targeted for spying by 11 governments.
(BAJ) (BELARUS) Founded in 1995 to support independent journalism, the Belarusian Association of Journalists has played a pivotal role in documenting the unprecedented level of attacks and arrests targeting journalists in Belarus since the disputed presidential election in August 2020.
BELLINGCAT (NETHERLANDS) is an independent international collective of researchers, investigators, and citizen journalists publishing on a variety of subjects. With their innovative approaches using publicly available open source data, social media investigation, and citizen journalist analysis, they got significantly advanced reporting on violence against journalists during the nationwide protests which took place last summer in US following the death of unarmed black man George Floyd.
THE INTERCEPT BRASIL (TIB) (BRAZIL) The Intercept Brasil (TIB) investigation on the leaked messages exchanged between prosecutors for Operation Lava Jato (Express wash) — a corruption scandal involving high placed government officials — revealed an explicit disregard for Brazilian law, as they proved the judge’s bias and his involvement with the prosecution.
Nominees for the Independence Prize:
STAND NEWS (HONG KONG) Founded in Hong Kong in December 2014, Stand News is an independent, non-profit, Cantonese-Chinese news website that undertakes to defend fundamental Hong Kong values – “democracy, human rights, freedom, rule of law and justice” – and aims to be a space where journalists are “independent of companies, shareholders, authorities and political parties.”
MAJDOLEEN HASSONA (PALESTINE) Before joining the Turkish TV channel TRT and relocating to Istanbul, the Palestinian journalist was often harassed and prosecuted by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities for her critical reporting. While on a return visit to the West Bank in August 2019 with her fiancé (also a TRT journalist based in Turkey), she was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and was told that she was subject to a ban on leaving the territory issued by Israeli intelligence “for security reasons.” Since then, she has been stranded in the West Bank.
MOUSSA AKSAR(NIGER) In Niger, a journalist cannot make a living from a publication that specialises in investigative reporting. The level of harassment is too great and advertisers are scared off. To ensure the survival and independence of L’Événement, the newspaper he founded in 2002, Moussa Aksar also runs a farm. Selling mangoes and camel’s milk allows him to continue his work as a journalist.
ANDRAS ARATO (HUNGARY) This journalist runs Klubradio, a Budapest-based independent radio station renowned for its outspoken and humorous criticism of the authorities. It became another victim of the Hungarian government’s censorship policies when the Hungarian Media Council suspended its operating licence on trivial administrative grounds, in a decision that was deemed discriminatory by the European Commission but was confirmed by Hungary’s Supreme Court.
“The list of nominees for the 2021 Awards reflects the challenges facing journalists and media outlets engaged in a common battle for the freedom to inform,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
Chaired by RSF president Pierre Haski, the jury of the 29th RSF Press Freedom Awards consists of prominent journalists and free speech defenders from all over the world.
The jury members are Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist and Washington Post opinion columnist; Raphaëlle Bacqué, a leading French reporter for Le Monde; Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer and president of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression; Zaina Erhaim, a Syrian journalist and communication consultant; Erick Kabendera, a Tanzanian investigative reporter; Hamid Mir, a Pakistani reporter, columnist and author; Frederik Obermaier, a German investigative journalist with Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper; and Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and founding editor-in-chief of Dozhd, Russia’s only independent TV news channel.
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