19. 10. 2005

CPJ TO HONOUR PRESS FREEDOM DEFENDERS

NEW YORK, October 19, 2005 – This year’s International Press Freedom Awards will be presented to three journalists and one lawyer. On 22 November 2005, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2005 International Press Freedom Awards to former Uzbekistan-based correspondent for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Galima Bukharbaeva, publisher and editor of "Jornal Pessoal" Lúcio Flávio Pinto, Chinese journalist Shi Tao and Zimbabwean lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa. CPJ will also honor the late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings with the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for a lifetime of distinguished achievement. “All of the awardees have risked their lives and their freedom to report the truth about politicians, policies, businesses and crime. For their work, these journalists have been attacked in various ways to powerful people determined to hide their actions”, said in the statement of the CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper. Flávio Pinto has been physically assaulted and threatened with death for reporting on drug trafficking, environmental destruction and corruption in Brazil's remote Amazon region. Bukharbaeva risked her life covering the massacre of innocent protestors in the city of Andijan last May. She now lives in exile in the United States but faces criminal charges in her home country. Shi Tao is serving a 10-year prison sentence for "leaking state secrets abroad." He has been a freelance journalist for Internet publications and an editor for "Dangdai Shang Bao", a Chinese business newspaper. His essays on political reform, published on news Web sites outside of China, drew the ire of authorities. Mtetwa, a media lawyer, continues to defend journalists in her home country, despite being arrested and beaten because of her work. She has won acquittals for several journalists facing criminal charges, including two London journalists arrested during April’s tightly controlled presidential elections.