CPJ’s annual International Press Freedom Awards and benefit dinner honored courageous journalists from around the world on Thursday, November 17, 2022, in New York City. This year’s dinner was chaired by Shari Redstone, who leads Paramount Global.
Watch a video of the event.
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CPJ’s 2022 IPFA honorees are:
Abraham Jiménez Enoa, Cuba
Jiménez is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the online narrative journalism magazine El Estornudo, launched in 2016. He is also a columnist for The Washington Post and Gatopardo. Jiménez is a prominent outspoken voice within Cuba’s media community, providing fresh perspectives on challenges for independent journalists and reporting on issues rarely covered by state media, including racism in Cuba. In 2020, state security officers strip-searched and handcuffed Jiménez, interrogated him for five hours, and threatened him and his family over his writings about life in Cuba in his monthly Washington Post column. Despite authorities’ threats of legal repercussions if he continued to publish in The Washington Post, later that week Jiménez published another column, stating it could be his last given the threat of imprisonment. The persistent harassment and censorship forced Jiménez to flee to Spain in 2021, where he is currently living in exile.
Niyaz Abdullah, Iraqi Kurdistan
Abdullah is a prominent Iraqi Kurdish freelance journalist. She regularly contributes to media outlets in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, including Radio Nawa, the broadcaster NRT, and the news websites Westga, Zhyan News Network, Hawlati, and Skurd, among others. Abdullah has covered politics, civil unrest, government corruption, human rights, and ethnic and religious minorities in Iraqi Kurdistan. Abdullah faced legal harassment by security forces and local authorities, and she was detained and threatened with violence over her work. In 2021, she fled to France to escape threats against her.
Sevgil Musaieva, Ukraine
Musaieva is editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, Ukraine’s leading independent online newspaper covering politics, economics, and culture – and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Musaieva has worked relentlessly since the invasion to ensure the safety of her staff and to inform the public. In June 2022, she and a colleague in her newsroom were subjected to death threats following the publication of an investigative report. Under Musaieva’s leadership, Ukrainska Pravda journalists are providing critical, reliable coverage despite the dangers of war and Russia’s declared ban on the publication.
Pham Doan Trang, Vietnam
Trang is a reporter specializing in human rights and is the founder of the independent legal magazine Luat Khoa. She also edits and writes for The Vietnamese, an independent English-language website, and has reported for the exile-run Danlambao blog. On October 6, 2020, she was arrested under Article 117 of the penal code, a provision that bans making or spreading news against the state. She was held incommunicado for over a year before her December 2021 conviction in a one-day trial. Trang is currently serving a nine-year sentence as a result of that conviction, and was among at least 23 journalists held behind bars for their reporting in Vietnam at the time of CPJ’s 2021 prison census, making the country among the world’s five worst jailers of journalists.
Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award winner
CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award is presented annually to an individual who has shown extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom.
Originally the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, it was renamed in 2017 to honor Gwen Ifill, the veteran journalist and former CPJ board member who died in late 2016.
Galina Timchenko
Timchenko is the editor of Meduza, an independent Russian news website based in Riga, Latvia. She was fired as editor-in-chief of the leading Russian news website Lenta.ru in 2014, to be replaced by a pro-Kremlin successor during Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. Nearly half of Lenta.ru’s employees resigned in protest, and Timchenko and many of her colleagues fled to Latvia and went on to found Meduza to serve Russian-speaking audiences, free of censorship. The site has been blocked in Russia and labeled as a so-called “foreign agent.”