According to the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals, three Iranian journalists have been named as the recipients of the 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Journalism Prize. The award ceremony was held on the evening of May 02 at UNESCO in New York, USA. Niloufa Hamedi, Elah Mohammadi and Narges Mohammadi are the three journalists who have received the award.
This award is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, who was murdered on December 17, 1986, in front of the office of the Colombian newspaper El Espectador. The prize was awarded on May 3, 1997, on International Press Freedom Day.
Journalist Niloofar Hamedi, the recipient of this year’s award, is a journalist from Shargh, a leading reformist daily newspaper. She was the first to report the news of the death of Masha Amini, who died in police custody on September 16, 2022. She has been held in solitary confinement in Iran’s Evin Prison since September 2022.
On September 16, 2022, 22-year-old Masha Hamedi was detained and beaten by Iran’s moral police for improperly wearing a hijab while entering Qasra Hospital in Tehran. At the time of Amini’s death, Hamedi tweeted a photo of Amini’s parents hugging and crying in the hospital. It is the first report of Amini’s death. The photo quickly went viral, and eventually women organized protests across Iran.
Hamedi was arrested by security forces on September 21, 2022 as a result of news coverage of Niloufa Hamedi, following a wave of arrests by the Iranian regime targeting journalists and students who joined the protests. She has been branded a foreign agent, which could lead to a lengthy prison sentence.
The second recipient of the Guillermo Cano Isaza Award is journalist Elaheh Mohammadi. She was also arrested for reporting on the death of Masha Amini. Elaheh Mohammadi is a journalist for Ham-Mihan, a reformist newspaper covering social issues and gender equality.
Elaheh Mohammadi reported on the funeral of Masha Amini, who has been held in Evin Prison since September 2022. She was also banned from reporting for one year in 2020 due to her use of the media.
Elaheh Mohammadi has also joined Iran’s Ham-Mihan newspaper to cover the funeral of 22-year-old Masha Amini, who died on September 16 after being in a coma for 3 days after being arrested by Tehran’s moral police. It is said that she had reported the police attack at the funeral. She was summoned by judicial authorities but earlier arrested by security forces on September 29, 2022 while on her way to the office of the Ministry of Intelligence for questioning. Elaheh Mohammadi has also been accused of harming national security as a foreign agent.
The third recipient of the World Journalism Prize is Narges Mohammadi. She has worked as a journalist in several newspapers for many years. She is an author and deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), a Tehran-based civil society organization. Narges Mohammadi is currently serving a 16-year sentence in Evin Prison. Narges Mohammadi, who has continued to report for the print media from prison, has also interviewed other female prisoners. These interviews are included in her book White Torture. In 2022, she was also a recipient of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Prize for Courage.
Free after serving her lengthy prison sentence, Mohammadi was arbitrarily arrested on November 16, 2021, in Karaj, Alborz province, while attending a commemoration of Ibrahim Ketabdar, who was killed by Iranian security forces during nationwide protests. Mohammadi was first arrested in 1998 and imprisoned for a year for criticizing the Iranian government. She was imprisoned again in April 2010, but was released due to ill health.
In July 2011, Mohammadi was retried and found guilty of acting against national security and propagating against the regime. In September, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
During the protests following the death of Masha Amini in custody in December 2022, Nargez Mohammadi detailed the sexual and physical abuse faced by women in detention in a report published by the BBC.
In January 2023, she released a shocking report detailing the conditions of women in Evin prison, including a list of 58 prisoners and the interrogation process and torture they faced. 57 of these women were imprisoned in solitary confinement for 8,350 days, of which 56 were sentenced to 3,300 months in prison.
In 1999, she married reformist journalist Taghi Rahmani, who was also arrested soon after. Rahmani moved to France in 2012 after serving a 14-year prison sentence, but Mohammadi stayed in Iran to continue her human rights work. They have twins Ali and Kiana.
Zainab Salbi, President of the International Jury of Media Professionals, said at the main award ceremony for these three journalists, “We are committed to honoring the brave work of Iranian journalists whose reporting paved the way for a women-based revolution. They paid a heavy price for their commitment to reporting and publishing the truth. For that, we are committed to honoring them and ensuring that their voices are heard around the world until they are safe and free.”
Source : Voicetube