Courage Awardees: Where Are They Now?
Latest Updates
• Gwen Lister Shepherded Newspaper through Tumultuous Times, Promotes Media Progress in Namibia
• Nekzad Founds Women-Focused Afghan News Agency, Trains Female Journalists
• Chidiac Survives, Thrives Following Assassination Attempt
• Rehnfeldt Continues to Expose Corruption, Contraband in Paraguay
• Iryna Khalip Vows to Appeal Case to Belarus Supreme Court
• After Exposing Global Sex Trafficking, Lydia Cacho Faces Renewed Death Threats
• Nyaira Perseveres as a Journalist in Exile
• Vitug Undeterred by Ongoing Legal Battle with Supreme Court Justice
Gwen Lister Shepherded Newspaper through Tumultuous Times, Promotes Media Progress in Namibia
By Jessica Baumann
Gwen Lister, Namibia
2004 Courage in Journalism Award
January 19, 2012 -- For 2004 Courage in Journalism Award winner Gwen Lister, “courage isn’t as much a tangible act of bravery as a belief and passion for what one does.” This passion has carried her through difficult years when she lived with constant death threats, suffered imprisonment, and was harassed and threatened by both the government and private groups.
Lister points to the Courage in Journalism Award as a source of support. “One of the most difficult things for me was working alone, as a woman, without the support of others and in a primarily man's world as it was at that time,” she says, “The Courage Award came as the first real recognition from other women of my work over the years. For this reason, it meant a lot to me at the time, empowered me to do more, and to increase my efforts to encourage other young women to go into journalism, and it remains one of the most special awards ever bestowed upon me.”
>> Read more.
Nekzad Founds Women-Focused Afghan News Agency, Trains Female Journalists
By Melissa Rodgers
Farida Nekzad, Afghanistan
2009 Courage in Journalism Award
August 23, 2011 -- 2009 Courage in Journalism Award winner Farida Nezkad says that the biggest problems facing Afghanistan – security, warlords and social problems – remain unsolved as foreign troops prepare to withdraw.
Working as a journalist in Afghanistan has exposed Nekzad a kidnapping attempt, menacing phone calls during the funeral of a slain colleague, and regular death threats by phone and email. She said that receiving a Courage in Journalism Award offered her reassurance that “we are not alone when we accept the risk.”
>> Read more.
Chidiac Survives, Thrives Following Assassination Attempt
By Melissa Rodgers
May Chidiac, Lebanon
2006 Courage in Journalism Award
August 22, 2011 -- Six years after surviving an assassination attempt, May Chidiac continues her work with the same attitude of defiance and triumph that characterized her acceptance of a Courage in Journalism Award from the IWMF in 2006.
“Stopping my work as a journalist would have meant granting my attackers the satisfaction of silencing me. Resuming work was my own way of proving them otherwise,” Chidiac recently explained. “The numerous death threats I encountered were proof of my attackers’ fear and annoyance towards freedom of expression.”
A bomb that detonated beneath the drivers’ side of her car in 2005 cost Chidiac her left hand and left leg, but failed to end her life as it was surely intended.
>> Read more.
Rehnfeldt Continues to Expose Corruption,
Contraband in Paraguay
By Melissa Rodgers
Rehnfeldt and IWMF Advisory Council member Susan King at the
2010 Courage in Journalism Awards in New York
July 26, 2011--For investigative journalist Mabel Rehnfeldt, the honor of winning a Courage in Journalism Award in 2004 was inextricably bound up with a sense of duty. She recalled, “I understood that as of that moment, I would no longer have the luxury to make room for cowardice in my life.”
Rehnfeldt has made a career out of exposing corruption in Paraguay. She became the head of the investigative unit of ABC Color in 1994, and has continued reporting despite more than a decade of attacks, legal challenges, harassment and blackmail. Rehnfeldt is now the director of Paraguay’s ABC Digital and hosts a popular two-hour radio show each weekday. The constant threats and intimidation seem unlikely to wane any time soon; neither does Rehnfeldt’s determination. >> Read more.
Iryna Khalip Vows to Appeal Case to Belarus Supreme Court, UN Human Rights Committee
 July 20, 2011--Seven months after the disputed Belarus presidential election led to the widespread arrest of protesters and journalists, IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winner Iryna Khalip is vowing this week to appeal her case to the Supreme Court and the UN Human Rights Committee.
Khalip, an outspoken journalist who is married to jailed presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, had her appeal rejected this week by the Minsk City Court. After she covered the post-election protests, she was charged with inciting a riot and given a suspended two-year prison term with two years probation and a three-year “restricted freedom” sentence.
“We have a nice judicial tradition whereby you know beforehand what will happen and what the judge with the prosecutor will say,”Khalip told reporters.
“I don’t believe that the Supreme Court will consider the case in a different way, but we want to go through all institutions to have all necessary papers for the UN, as well as for our rehabilitation that will take place when things will change. And they will change very soon,” she said. >> Read more about Iryna.
After Exposing Global Sex Trafficking, Lydia Cacho Faces Renewed Death Threats
 July 20, 2011--Crusading Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho is facing renewed death threats, after exposing the global sex trafficking of women and girls.
"They want to silence my work and my defense of women's rights because they know we have them tied down, but they won't succeed," Cacho, an IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winner, told Efe after an event in Mexico City with the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, South Africa's Navi Pillay.
For the past five years she has been threatened for exposing sex trafficking in Mexico, but the latest incidents apparently are in reaction to the publication of “Slaves of Power,” which investigates sex trafficking around the world. Earlier she wrote “The Demons of Eden,” exposing the pedophile rings in Mexico allegedly under the protection of politicians and business leaders.
In recent weeks Cacho has received threats by e-mail and anonymous phone calls. "Fortunately, we already have signs of where they're coming from and, although we're not very clear of the name of who's responsible, we're close and we'll reveal it," she told Efe.
After publishing the crimes of Lebanese-born Mexican businessman Jean Succar Kuri and others, Cacho was the victim of kidnapping, psychological torture and police abuses, which she revealed in another book titled “Memoirs of an Infamy.”
Nyaira Perseveres as a Journalist in Exile
By Melissa Rodgers
Sandra Nyaira, Zimbabwe
2002 Courage in Journalism Award
Nine years after winning a Courage in Journalism Award, Sandra Nyaira still remembers the experience as “bittersweet.”
"It felt great to realize that there were women out there who were looking out for other women, who really wanted the media environments we work in in our different countries to improve, " she said.
Yet the solidarity Nyaira felt upon receiving the award was tempered with sadness for the plight of the ordinary Zimbabweans who risked their lives to give her tips for stories. >> Read more.
 Listen: Nyaira on winning the Courage in Journalism Award.
Vitug Undeterred by Ongoing Legal Battle with
Supreme Court Justice
Marites Vitug, Philippines
1991 Courage in Journalism Award
Twenty years after receiving IWMF's Courage in Journalism Award, Marites Vitug of the Philippines continues an unabashed and unapologetic commitment to investigative reporting.
At that time, Vitug was entangled in a lawsuit stemming from her stories on the destruction of the Palawan rainforest. Her reporting provoked the anger of a logging company with vested economic interests in that region.
After a five year battle, the lawsuit was finally dropped. Vitug turned her articles into a book, The Politics of Logging: Power from the Forest, which was published in 1993 and won the Philippines’ National Book Award. >> Read more.
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