Past Courage Award Winners:
Where Are They Now?
2009 Courage Award winner Iryna Khalip - Under house arrest in Belarus
In October 2009, IWMF Courage in Journalism Awardee Iryna Khalip, a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, one of the last remaining independent media outlets in Belarus, delivered her acceptance speech in New York. Her freedom to travel and pursue stories of interest, however, has since been revoked.
After temporarily throwing Khalip in prison for covering post-election protests in Minsk on December 19, 2010, local authorities have been reluctant to respect her privacy. Awaiting trial under strict house arrest, Khalip is kept prisoner on her local reporting grounds. The KGB has been monitoring Khalip's every move – tracking her e-mails, interrupting her Internet connection, and tapping her phone calls. But her advocates, including those at the IWMF, are also keeping watch over her.
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2003 Courage Award winner navigates the complex waters of independent media in Ukraine
January 22, 2013 -- Tatyana Goryachova won the Courage in Journalism Award in 2003 for reporting on corruption and local elections in Ukraine despite countless threats against her safety for doing so. The prior year, an assailant had attempted to silence Goryachova by throwing hydrochloric acid on her face. Undeterred, she found inspiration from the acts of good will that transpired from this incident, to pursue a faith-based branch of social journalism.
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2000 Courage Award winner still fights for freedom of press in Kyrgyzstan
October 20, 2012 -- Zamira Sydykova received the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2000, in recognition of her adamant coverage of corruption in Kyrgyzstan and the resiliency she demonstrated against subsequent governmental attempts to shut down her paper, Res Publica. Since the IWMF last caught up with Sydykova, she has added Ambassador, scholar, trade advisor, activist, and grandmother to her list of lifetime achievements, while retaining her distinguished reputation as a leading female journalist in Kyrgyzstan.
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IWMF calls for release of Iranian Prisoner of Conscience
September 5, 2012 -- The IWMF joins Amnesty International's call demanding that the Iranian authorities release prisoner of conscience Jila Baniyaghoob, a winner of the 2009 Courage in Journalism Award and women’s rights activist.
Jila Baniyaghoob, the editor of the website "Focus on Iranian Women", was summoned to the notorious Evin Prison on Sunday, September 2, 2012, to serve a one-year prison sentence for "spreading propaganda against the system” and “insulting the president”. In addition to her imprisonment, she has been banned from media and journalistic activities for 30 years.
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Lydia Cacho - Mexican journalist and women's rights advocate leaves country after death threats
August 22, 2012 -- After leaving Mexico in a haste following a particularly chilling death threat on August 3, Lydia Cacho, winner of the 2007 IWMF Courage Award, spoke about the circumstances of her departure for the first time yesterday in a phone interview with the Spanish newspaper El País.
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Chris Anyanwu - Journalist turned Senator Works to Strengthen Democracy in Nigeria
August 16, 2012 -- When the IWMF last spoke with Chris Anyanwu, a recipient of the 1995 Courage in Journalism Award, she was planning to expand her radio operations throughout Nigeria. Today, she has found a new calling.
In 2007, Anyanwu was elected senator of the Owerri Senatorial zone. She served as senator for four years, working to develop the rural areas within her district and address the high unemployment rates among the younger population. Anyanwu was re-elected to her position in 2011.
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Courage Award Winners Kathy Gannon and Anja Niedringhaus first foreign journalists to embed with the Afghan National Army
August 6, 2012 -- Earlier this year, Niedringhaus and Gannon set out together to document the war in Afghanistan from a different perspective - a perspective that would would lead them into the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan. Arranged by the Afghan Ministry of Defense, Niedringhaus and Gannon became the first foreign journalists to embed with the Afghan National Army.
In an exclusive interview with IWMF, the two Courage Award winners share their experiences and explain what compels them to continue their dangerous work.
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Cameroonian Journalist Agnès Tailé Continues Work in U.S., Provides News for “Abandoned” Areas of Cameroon
July 30, 2012 -- Agnès Tailé, winner of the 2009 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, continues to demonstrate courage, tenacity, and strength in her work.
When Agnès Tailé began her radio career in 2001, she simply enjoyed talking with different people. However, she slowly realized the political implications of her work and began to take it more seriously. In 2006, Tailé was repeatedly threatened and nearly beaten to death for refusing to stop criticizing the government on her radio show, A vous la parole (Have Your Say). After extensive physical therapy, Tailé returned to journalism and continued to cover dangerous and poverty stricken areas of Cameroon and other African countries.
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© by Wendy R. Walter
Donna Ferrato, Revolution, and the Photography That Has Continued to Challenge Violence
July 13, 2012 -- Nearly thirty years after beginning her work on domestic violence, Donna Ferrato’s photography still inspires discussion about domestic violence, challenges stereotypes and beliefs about survivors of abuse, and empowers women.
Ferrato began her work in the early 1980’s after unexpectedly witnessing the abusive relationship of a couple she was photographing for a different project. That moment changed her career forever. She began riding along with police officers as they responded to domestic violence calls, risking her own safety, to document the pervasiveness of inter-relationship violence and its emotional, psychological and physical effects.
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Gwen Lister Shepherded Newspaper through Tumultuous Times, Promotes Media Progress in Namibia
By Jessica Baumann
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.”
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Nekzad Founds Women-Focused Afghan News Agency, Trains Female Journalists
By Melissa Rodgers
August 23, 2011 -- 2008 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.”
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Chidiac Survives, Thrives Following Assassination Attempt
By Melissa Rodgers
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.
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Rehnfeldt Continues to Expose Corruption, Contraband in Paraguay
By Melissa Rodgers
July 26, 2011--For investigative journalist Mabel Rehnfeldt (seen here with IWMF Advisory Council member Susan King at the 2010 Courage in Journalism Awards in New York), 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.
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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.
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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, a 2007 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.”
Sandra Nyaira Perseveres as a Journalist in Exile
By Melissa Rodgers
Nine years after winning a Courage in Journalism Award in 2002, 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.
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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.
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