This is a belated post in observance of World Press Freedom Day last Thursday, May 3. But I couldn't pass up the chance to honor Anna Politkovskaya, this year's awardee of the UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. In life and in death, she pursued journalism with passion and commitment. May all journalists be as courageous as Anna in pursuing the truth.
I'm sharing with you parts of an article written by Cristina L’Homme on Anna's heroism entitled Anna Politkovskaya: Murdered Because She Stood Alone.
For the first time this year, the UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was awarded posthumously, to the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Despite fear and threats, she continued to cover the situation in Chechnya until she was murdered. She used to say “Words can save lives.” She was convinced her testimony could help mentalities evolve. Yet words finally killed her. Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on Saturday 7 October 2006, shot down as she was coming home, on Lesnaya street in Moscow. Her last article on Chechnya, unfinished, was published by her newspaper Novaya Gazeta (circulation: one million) a few days after her death.
To pay tribute to her courage and commitment, the Director-General of UNESCO, on the recommendation of an independent international jury, decided to name her laureate of the UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize posthumously, a first in the prize’s history. The chairman of the jury, Kavi Chongkittavorn, hailed Ms Politkovskaya’s “incredible stubbornness”, which pushed her to continue “chronicling events in Chechnya when the whole world had lost interest in that conflict”. “This prize means a lot to us, her colleagues at Novaya Gazeta. It help us and allows us to continue working,” declared Viatcheslav Izmaylov, journalist at Novaya Gazeta, assigned the investigation on her murder. “It represents recognition and is important for her children.”
...“If all journalists had been as courageous as Anna Politkovskaya, she wouldn’t have been killed,” affirmed the head of the journalists’ union in Russia on the day of her funeral, “because those who killed her would have hesitated at the thought that another journalist would take her place. She died because she stood alone.”
Read more about her heroism here.
No comments:
Post a Comment