Belarus editor and free-press champion Aliaksei Karol and Ugandan human rights reporter Frank Nyakairu share this year's Knight International Journalism Award from the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ).
In a news release, The ICFJ called Karol, editor-in-chief of the weekly publication Novy Chas, "one of the few remaining independent voices in Belarus." It said that for the past 15 years he had provided independent news despite physical attacks and intense government pressure. The Belarus Supreme Court shut down his first newspaper, Zgoda, in 2006, but the next year Karol began a new weekly, Novy Chas, which has faced legal challenges.
Uganda’s Nyakairu was rewarded for his in-depth coverage of human rights abuses in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Sudan. A multimedia reporter who spent more than seven years at The Monitor and works for Reuters, the ICFJ said he had produced hard-hitting stories on everything from abuses in Ugandan detention centres to war crimes by rebel leaders in his country. Upset over a report in 2002, the government raided and shut down The Monitor for several days. Nyakairu was detained and charged with threatening national security. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in his favour.
“Our winners this year represent the last hope for a free press in Belarus—and the best hope for tackling human rights abuses through top-notch reporting in Uganda,” said ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan, who announced the winners at the 61st World Newspaper Congress, 15th World Editors Forum in Göteborg. “These journalists stand up and speak out, despite the pressures, and set the finest standards for the profession.”
Karol and Nyakairu will be honoured along with Founders Award recipient John F. Burns of The New York Times at the annual ICFJ Awards Dinner in Washington, DC, on November 12.
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