4 international journalists named for Press Freedom Awards

NEW YORK – Four international journalists who faced imprisonment, arrest and threats for their reporting have been named winners of the International Press Freedom Awards.

The Committee to Protect Journalists announced the 2016 recipients on Monday.

The awards will be presented to Egypt’s Mahmoud Abou Zeid, India’s Malini Subramaniam, Turkey’s Can Dundar and El Salvador’s Oscar Martinez on Nov. 22 at a ceremony in New York.

The organization said CNN correspondent and anchor Christiane Amanpour will receive its Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in the cause of press freedom.

Zeid is a freelance photographer who has been imprisoned since 2013. He was arrested while covering clashes between Egyptian security forces and supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi during a Cairo protest in which hundreds of people were killed.

Subramaniam, a freelance journalist, was interrogated over her coverage of human rights abuses and the conflict between Maoist and state forces. She has been forced to leave her home state due to repeated threats and harassment.

Dundar, editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, was sentenced in May to nearly six years in prison on charges of revealing state secrets, espionage and aiding a terrorist group. The charges relate to a story that alleged Turkey sought to smuggle weapons to Syrian opposition groups.

Martinez, an investigative reporter for the online newsmagazine El Faro, has received death threats for his reporting of gang violence and extrajudicial killings by police in El Salvador.

“These four brave journalists have risked their freedom, and their lives, to report to their societies and the global community about critical news events,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said.

CPJ Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe said Amanpour was being honoured because “she consistently used her own journalism and worked behind the scenes to defend the rights of journalists and uphold press freedom all over the world.”