Three lauded for 'free press'
2003-12-11 09:28
Paris - A jailed Moroccan journalist on a hunger strike, a Haitian radio director forced to flee home and a Zimbabwe newspaper ordered shut down were all honoured on Wednesday with prizes for defending freedom of the press.
The press watchdog group Reporters Without Borders honoured Ali Lmrabet, serving a three-year prison term for criticising the king of Morocco, with its 2003 prize.
Lmrabet, owner and editor of two satirical weeklies, was convicted in May for insulting King Mohammed VI and attacking the monarchy in articles and cartoons. His French-language Demain and its Arabic-language sister weekly Douman were ordered closed.
Lmrabet was taken to hospital during a hunger strike in the spring. He began a new hunger strike on November 30, Reporters Without Borders said.
Zimbabwe's best-selling independent newspaper The Daily News, which denounced corruption and criminal activities among government leaders, was honoured for symbolising the right to inform. The paper, constantly harassed, was forced to close in September because of new, restrictive press laws, Reporters Without Borders said.
The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Nyarota, won Unesco's Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for 2002.
Michele Montas, former director of Radio Haiti Inter, was also honoured for defending press freedom. She was forced to shut down her radio station in February and flee the country after an attempted attack last Christmas, according to Reporters Without Borders. Her husband, prominent journalist Jean Dominique, was shot dead in April 2000 in the courtyard of the radio station.
The $3 000 prizes were created in 1992. Among previous winners are Cuban dissident poet Raul Rivero and Russian journalist Grigori Pasko, sentenced in December 2001 to four years in prison for "treason" for illegally attending a meeting of top military commanders and taking notes there. He was freed early in January.
- SAPA