Eynulla Fatullayev Award Acceptance Speech
Eynulla Fatullayev Realny Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Acceptance Speech CPJ International Press Freedom Award 2009 November 22, 2011 Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, New York City Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come back from a place where times stands still. Neither night falls there nor does day come. Bare walls, cold, dampness, and darkness rule. In that place,…
Dan Rather Award Acceptance Speech
Dan Rather Acceptance Speech CPJ Burton Benjamin Memorial Award 2011 November 22, 2011 Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, New York City And, We’ve Gotten Used to It One of Bud Benjamin’s dreams was to expand the CBS Evening News to a full hour. And Bud wasn’t thinking of filling it with helicopter shots, celebrity gossip,…
Mansoor al-Jamri, Bahrain
2011 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee Mansoor al-Jamri is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Al-Wasat, an independent Arabic-language daily, and a regular contributor to other publications on topics such as politics and human rights in Bahrain. When waves of protests swept the country in early 2011, Al-Wasat called for moderation and prudence by demonstrators and authorities….
Natalya Radina, Belarus
2011 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee Natalya Radina, editor-in-chief of the pro-opposition news website Charter 97, which covers government wrongdoing, human rights violations, and corruption in Belarus, was arrested in December 2010 after members of the KGB, the country’s security service, stormed her office. Radina was indicted on charges of organizing mass disorder in the…
Javier Valdez Cárdenas, Mexico
2011 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee In 2003, together with reporters from the daily Noroeste, Javier Valdez Cárdenas founded Ríodoce, a weekly publication covering crime and corruption in Sinaloa, one of Mexico’s most violent states. Valdez is known for his prolific coverage of drug trafficking and organized crime. Early one morning in September 2009, unidentified…
Dan Rather, United States
2011 CPJ Burton Benjamin Memorial Awardee Dan Rather Dan Rather’s distinguished career spans 60 years of probing journalism as a television correspondent and anchor covering stories around the world. During his 44 years with CBS News, he was anchor and managing editor of “The CBS Evening News” for a record 24 years and was a…
Honoring courage in defiance of censorship
New York, October 4, 2011–Four outstanding journalists who have endured and defied media repression in Bahrain, Belarus, Mexico, and Pakistan will be honored with the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2011 International Press Freedom Awards, an annual recognition of courageous journalism. The awardees–Mansoor al-Jamri (Al-Wasat, Bahrain), Natalya Radina (Charter 97, Belarus), Javier Valdez Cárdenas (Ríodoce, Mexico),…
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, September 2011 Journalist ID’d in WikiLeaks cable, flees Ethiopia U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed last month by WikiLeaks cited Ethiopian journalist Argaw Ashine by name and referred to his unnamed government source, forcing Ashine to flee the country after police interrogated him over the source’s identity. It is the…
AU must act after journalist is killed in Somalia
New York, September 5, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the African Union to ensure the safety of civilians operating in Somalia after witnesses reported that AU forces fired on a Malaysian humanitarian convoy in Mogadishu on Friday, killing one journalist and injuring another. Calling the shootings “deeply regrettable,” the African Union Mission in…
Spying on media exposes French government’s dark side
“The freedom of the press and the lie of the state.” The headline Thursday in the influential newspaper Le Monde was bound to make a big splash. While President Nicolas Sarkozy was basking in the glory of his Libyan intervention and celebrating the virtues of democracy, the French “paper of record” was denouncing the dark…