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Courage in Journalism Awards

Every year the International Women’s Media Foundation honors brave women journalists who risk political persecution,injury and sometimes death in their efforts to expose corruption and champion human rights.

Global Research on Women

The IWMF is working on ground-breaking research on the status of women in the media worldwide. The new study, the Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media, will measure the career progress of women in the news media and use the results to help advocate for change.

The IWMF also tracks past studies on women in the news media, and will draw from this prior work in compiling the Global Report, which will be published in 2011.

4-Year Africa Project

With generous support from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the IWMF launched "Reporting on Agriculture and Women: Africa." The project is energizing the way African media cover one of the most important topics on the continent.
The IWMF is helping African journalists to boost coverage of agriculture and rural development and increase women’s voices – both as journalists and as sources – in stories about agriculture

Funding HIV/AIDS Investigative Reporting

The IWMF is establishing 10 fellowships to train journalists in South Africa to write investigative reports on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. With support from the M*A*C  AIDS Fund, these experienced journalists will conduct interviews and write in-depth research for their publications in 2011.

27

For Immediate Release:
October 27, 2010

For Further information, contact:
Kathleen Currie
(202) 567-2608
KCurrie@iwmf.org


Washington, D.C. – The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) strongly condemns the decision of an appellate court in Tehran that sentenced journalist Jila Baniyaghoob to one year in jail and a 30-year ban from journalism.

“We are outraged and appalled at this miscarriage of justice,” said IWMF Executive Director Liza Gross.

According to the website negahi.com, only one other journalist has been so severely punished in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Baniyaghoob’s attorney, Farideh Gheyrat, argued that Baniyaghoob has twice been found innocent of similar charges, that her professional demeanor of reporting fairly on people and events has not changed and that she did not commit offenses against the Islamic Republic of Iran. She called the verdict unjust.

Baniyaghoob won a 2009 Courage in Journalism Award from the IWMF for her bravery in reporting the news from Iran. She was unable to accept the award in person because she was arrested following protests during presidential elections in 2009. Some 40 journalists were arrested along with Baniyaghoob. They include her husband, Bahman Ahmadi Amoyee, who is serving a five-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison, Ward 350.

Baniyaghoob was arrested a week after the elections and sent to Evin prison. She was charged with propaganda against the Islamic regime because of her reports on the election and the protests that followed. She was released on bail in August 2009. In July, the Revolutionary Court in Teheran sentenced her to one year in jail and banned her from practicing journalism for 30 years. She appealed. This new verdict by the appellate court upholds her sentence.

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