Courage Award Winners

An investigative journalist and correspondent for Radio Nizkor in Colombia, Duque tackles some of the most difficult and dangerous stories in Colombia, including child trafficking, illegal adoption, infiltration of paramilitary groups into Colombian state institutions, human rights violations, and the murder of political humorist and journalist Jaime Garzón.  She first received death threats more than 10 years ago and has been constantly harassed by the Administrative Department of Security (DAS, the Colombian security service). She has had to go into exile three times, and her daughter has also received death threats.

A freelance Tanzanian reporter who contributes to the BBC World Service, Vicky Ntetema uncovered one of her country’s horrible secrets when she began to investigate the brutal killings of albinos and their families. Working undercover, she learned that witchdoctors were murdering albinos to dismember their bodies and sell potions made out of their hair, legs and arms.  Ntetema has received death threats since she started her reporting. She has twice left Tanzania for her safety. She now reports wearing hijab to disguise her identity and often travels with a security guard.

A Beijing-based Tibetan freelance writer and blogger for the site Invisible Tibet, Tsering Woeser is also a contributor to Radio Free Asia. For more than eight years, since the publication of her book Notes on Tibet, Woeser has been under constant scrutiny by Chinese authorities. Woeser lives in Beijing and reports about human rights abuses in Tibet, but her work is published only by media outside mainland China. Sources she has relied on for years will no longer speak to her for fear of retaliation; anyone who dares to meet with her is likely to be interrogated by police. Still, she remains determined to inform the world about the struggles of the Tibetan people.

Jila Baniyaghoob, freelance reporter and editor-in-chief of the website Kanoon Zanan Irani (Iranian Women Center), has fearlessly reported on government and social oppression, particularly as they affect women. She has been fired from several jobs because she refuses to censor the subject matter of her reporting and several of her media outlets have been closed by the government. The topics of her reporting make her a target of the Iranian government. She has been beaten, arrested and imprisoned numerous times.

Iryna Khalip, a reporter and editor in the Minsk bureau of Novaya Gazeta, has been a journalist for more than 15 years in Belarus, one of the most oppressive countries toward journalists in the world. After working at a succession of newspapers, only to see them closed by the government, she now works for one of the most independent newspapers in the former Soviet Union. Khalip has been arrested, subjected to all-night interrogations and beaten by police, who keep her under constant surveillance.

Agnes Taile has reported on human rights and press freedom, including unflinching stories on the ineffectiveness and corruption of government officials. In 2006, while she was a reporter for Sweet FM, Taile received threats demanding that she stop her pursuit of government corruption. She ignored the threats. Not long afterward, she was abducted from her home at knife point by three hooded men, then beaten and left for dead in a ravine. Her show was cancelled after the attack. After recovering, Taile was determined to keep working as a journalist and landed a new job with Canal 2 covering the northern provinces of Cameroon.

Aye Aye Win, a correspondent for the Associated Press in Myanmar, is one of the only women journalists in her country. Win works under the repressive military junta, so her movements are closely monitored by authorities. She has been called “the axe-handle of the foreign press” by other media outlets in Myanmar because she has helped open the door for foreign journalists to report on the country. Still, she risks her own safety to report.

Farida Nekzad is the managing editor and deputy director of Pajhwok Afghan News and vice president of the South Asia Media Commission. She frequently receives phone calls and email messages threatening her life. Despite working under tremendous pressure at a time when women journalists in particular are being threatened for their reporting in Afghanistan, Nekzad is committed to staying in her country to work toward a free press and greater equality for women journalists.

Sevgul Uludag is an investigative reporter for Yeniduzen newspaper in Cyprus. Uludag lives in the northern part of divided Cyprus but through her reporting attempts to ease the segregation between the Greek and Turkish communities. In doing so, she has faced many obstacles, including death threats and violent attacks. But neither hate campaigns nor psychological terror keep Uludag from publishing her articles.

Death threats were common for Maria Jimena Duzan, who covered the Colombian drug trade for a Bogota daily. The threats turned real for crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2006. These are just two of 56 valiant women journalists who have received Courage Awards since the IWMF launched the program in 1990. Read their inspiring stories below. And consider nominating a worthy colleague or friend for a Courage Award.

A correspondent for CIMAC news agency and a feature writer for Dia Siete magazine, Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho has endured numerous death threats because of her work reporting on domestic violence, organized crime and pedophilia.

Ethiopian journalist and former publisher Serkalem Fasil was arrested in November 2005 and charged with treason and outrages against the constitution,...

In the midst of the war in Iraq, the women of McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau risked their lives just to get to work. Driven by the desire to report to the world about the situation in their country, they became the backbone of bureau.

Jill Carroll, a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor, was working in Baghdad as a freelance reporter for the Monitor when she was abducted on January 7, 2006. Carroll was kidnapped about 100 yards from the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician. She had scheduled an interview with him but started to leave after an aide told her he was unavailable. Upon driving away, a large truck blocked the path. Armed men surrounded the car, and Carroll was shoved and kidnapped. After an 82-day ordeal, she was released March 30 and returned to the U.S. April 2

May Chidiac is one of the best known faces on Lebanese television. In September 2005, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation journalist lost her left hand and left leg as a result of a bomb exploding under the driver’s seat of her car. After months of recovery, she resumed her broadcasting career at the LBC.