The Committee to Protect Journalists(CPJ) has announced that 4 Journalists, Shahidul Alam from Bangladesh, Mohammad Mosaed from Iran, Dapo Olorunyomi from Nigeria and Svetlana Prokopyeva from Russia will be honoured with the 2020 International Press Freedom Awards for their courageous act. In addition to them lawyer Amal Clooney will be honoured with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award 2020.
Award Ceremony 2020
The award will be conferred to them on November 19, 2020, at CPJ’s annual benefit gala which will be virtually held. The annual benefit gala will be chaired by Patrick Gaspard, President of Open Society Foundations and hosted by veteran broadcast journalist Lester Holt of NBC News.
Note– The 4 Journalist have been arrested or faced criminal prosecution for their reporting
Shahidul Alam(photojournalist and commenter)
He is the founder of the Pathshala Media Institute and the Drik photo library.He was detained in august 2018 after he posted a video about student protests in Dhaka in social Media. He was in jail for 102 days and was released in November 2018.
Mohammad Mosaed (freelance economic reporter)
He was forced to resign from a reformist newspaper under government pressure as he publishes news on social media platforms.
He was arrested in late 2019 and released in early 2020. He was again arrested in February for criticizing the government’s handling of COVID-19.
Dapo Olorunyomi
He is the co-founder, CEO, and publisher of the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.
He was twice arrested before hiding in 1995 and was arrested with a colleague during a police raid on his newspaper on a defamation charge in 2017
Svetlana Prokopyeva
She is a regional correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, known as Radio Svoboda. She was convicted and ordered to pay a fine of 500,000 rubles (US$6,980) as she discussed about a suicide bombing in her radio show.
Amal ClooneyÂ
She is specialised in public international law, international criminal law, and human rights. She serves as an advocate for press freedom and has also served as international counsel for several journalists under threat.
About Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award:
i.It is an annual award given by CPJ’s board of directors to recognize extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.Â
ii.Earlier this award was named as Burton Benjamin Memorial Award. In order to honor the veteran journalist and former CPJ board member, who died in 2016, the name was changed as Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award in 2017.
About CPJ:
Headquarters– New York, US
Executive Director– Joel Simon
