Reporters Without Borders has awarded the 2022 Press Freedom Award to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, Ukrainian journalists Mstislav Chernov and Evgenii Maloletka, respectively, and Moroccan journalist Omar Radi.
At a ceremony held in the French capital, Paris, in the presence of Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dimitri Muratov, the four were awarded for being «extraordinary people» whose journalism allows democracy and human rights «to be kept alive», in the words of RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire.
In total, fifteen journalists and media from as many countries were nominated for the 2022 awards, which were presented in the presence of the Ministers of Culture of France and Ukraine, Rima Abdul and Oleksandr Tkachenko, respectively, as reported by the NGO in a statement.
Mohammadi, who received the Courage Award, was a close associate of 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and has been in and out of prison since 2011 for supporting the abolition of the death penalty in Iran. She has faced numerous human rights violations, including torture, whipping and ill-treatment.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press’ Ukrainian journalists Mstislav Chernov and Evgenii Maloletka, recipients of the Impact Award, spent 20 days in Mariupol documenting with their photographs the horror of a shelling of a maternity hospital, where a pregnant woman was killed and became a symbol of resistance around the world.
Finally, Moroccan journalist Omar Radi, a critic of the African country’s authorities and sentenced to six years in prison on charges of espionage and rape, received the Independence Award. Radi is one of the founders of Le Desk, an independent news website that publishes content critical of the authorities.
