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24 October, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) - Six Iraqi women journalists who risked their lives working for an American news organisation, a Mexican reporter who faced death threats for her reporting on paedophiles, and an Ethiopian journalist charged with treason for criticising the government have received awards for courage.
At a luncheon attended by some 500 people, the International Women's Media Foundation honoured the six Iraqis on Tuesday who worked in the McClatchy Baghdad bureau.
Mexican correspondent Lydia Cacho who travels with four bodyguards because of threats on her life for her reporting, and Ethiopian reporter and former publisher Serkalem Fasil who was released from prison in April after facing a possible death sentence for treason were also honoured.
American television journalist Judy Woodruff, the chair of the Courage in Journalism Awards, opened the awards by asking for a moment of silence in tribute to all journalists who lost their lives working in danger zones.
She also lamented that the murder of Russia's crusading investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a 2002 award winner gunned down last October, has still not been solved.
Cacho, 44, a correspondent for CIMAC news agency, a feature writer for Dia Siete magazine and the founder of a center for women, helped jail a paedophile ring leader.
Her arrest for libel and successful countersuit for corruption and human rights violations led to federal legislation decriminalising defamation.