The United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day or just World Press Day, observed to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in Windhoek in 1991.
Reporters Without Borders is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as founded on the belief that everyone requires access to the news and information, in line with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that recognises the right to receive and share information regardless of frontiers, along with other international rights charters. RSF has consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organisation of the Francophonie.
May Chidiac is a journalist and former Lebanese Minister of State for Administrative Development.
El Espectador is a newspaper of national circulation within Colombia, founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez on March 22, 1887, in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá. It transition from a daily to a weekly edition in 2001, following a financial crisis, and again with a daily released since May 11, 2008, a comeback which had been long rumoured, in tabloid format. From 1997 to 2011 its main shareholder was Julio Mario Santo Domingo.
Ahmad Zeidabadi is an Iranian journalist, academic, writer and political analyst and the secretary general of Office for Strengthening Unity. He is one of the notable figures of the Iranian reform movement.
Dawit Isaak is a Swedish-Eritrean playwright, journalist and writer who has been held in prison in Eritrea since 2001 without trial and is considered a traitor by the Eritrean government. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and has called for his immediate and unconditional release. For years, he was the only Swedish citizen held as a prisoner of conscience. As of 2023, he is considered to be one of the world's longest continuously detained journalists.
Guillermo Cano Isaza was a Colombian journalist. The editor of El Espectador from 1952 until 1986, he was assassinated in Bogotá in what was widely seen as an attack related to his criticism of Colombia's drug barons.
Christiana "Chris" Anyanwu MFR is a Nigerian journalist, publisher, author, and politician. She was imprisoned from 1995 to 1998 for treason after reporting on a failed coup d'état against the government of Sani Abacha, and won several international journalism prizes during her confinement, including the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
The Daily News is a Zimbabwean independent newspaper published in Harare. It was founded in 1999 by Geoffrey Nyarota, a former editor of the Bulawayo Chronicle. Bearing the motto "Telling it like it is", the Daily News swiftly became Zimbabwe's most popular newspaper. However, the paper also suffered two bombings, allegedly by Zimbabwean security forces. Nyarota was arrested six times and reportedly was the target of a government assassination plot. After being forced from the paper by new management in December 2002, Nyarota left Zimbabwe. The News was banned by the government in September 2003.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 194 member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the non-governmental, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions.
Ahmet Şık is a Turkish investigative journalist, the author of several books, a trade unionist, and member of Parliament in Turkey. His book, The Imam's Army, investigating the controversial Gülen movement of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, led to his detention for a year in 2011–2012 and the book's being seized and banned. He was under indictment in the OdaTV case of the Ergenekon trials; his cause has been taken up by English PEN, an association of writers fighting for freedom of expression. In 2016, the prosecutor in this case requested Şık's acquittal. On 29 December 2016, Şık was taken into custody once again on charges of "propaganda of terrorist organisations", with reference to 11 tweets that he had published. The following day, an Istanbul judge ordered Ahmet's arrest. According to lawyers, Şık was denied access to legal advice, held in solitary confinement, and not given drinking water for three days. He ran as an HDP candidate in 2018 Turkish elections and got elected from Istanbul's second electoral district. In 2020, he resigned from HDP, citing political differences and after sitting as an independent for a year, he joined the Workers' Party of Turkey.
Mazen Darwish is a Syrian lawyer and free speech advocate. He is the president of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression. News organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, have described him as one of Syria's most prominent activists. He was imprisoned in Syria from 2012 until his release in August 2015.
Reeyot Alemu is an Ethiopian journalist who served a 5-year prison sentence following an unfair trial in which anti-terrorism laws were used to silence her writing. She won the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2013.
Nizar Nayyouf is a Syrian journalist, human rights activist, and dissident. He was one of the founding members of the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedom, a banned political organization in Syria, as well as editor-in-chief of صوت الديمقراطيِّة Sawt al-Democratiyya. He has criticized the Syrian government for human rights abuses, for which he was arrested and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in 1991, most of which he spent in Mezzeh prison outside Damascus.
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, an Egyptian photojournalist, was arrested for taking photos of the Rabaa massacre in Cairo, Egypt and imprisoned during the post-coup unrest by the Egyptian government since 2013, where he faced the death penalty. By September 2018 he had been sentenced to a five-year prison term and was expected to be released shortly thereafter; he was released on 4 March 2019.
Wa Lone is a Reuters journalist and children's author who, with fellow reporter Kyaw Soe Oo, was arrested on 12 December 2017 in Myanmar because of their investigation into the Inn Din massacre. A police witness testified that their arrest was a case of entrapment. It is believed to have been intended to intimidate journalists.
Kyaw Soe Oo is a Myanmar Reuters journalist who, with fellow reporter Wa Lone, was arrested on 12 December 2017 in Myanmar because of their investigation into the Inn Din massacre. A police witness testified that their arrests were a case of entrapment. It is believed their arrests were intended to intimidate journalists.
Niloofar Hamedi is an Iranian journalist who works for the reformist daily newspaper Shargh. She was arrested during the Mahsa Amini protests for breaking the news about Mahsa Amini and reporting on her treatment by Iran's Morality Police. Hamedi is also known for her work as one of the first journalists to have interviewed the family and lawyer for imprisoned writer Sepideh Rashnu, and she published an investigative report on her case. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023.
Elaheh Mohammadi is an Iranian journalist who reports on society and women's issues for the daily Ham-Mihan newspaper. She has also worked with state-controlled media outlets such as Shahrvand, Khabar Online and Etemad Online in the past years. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023.
China 
Nigeria 
Mexico 
Syria 
Myanmar 
Zimbabwe 
Israel 
Cuba 
Lebanon 
Russia (posthumous award)
Sri Lanka (posthumous award)
Chile 
Iran 
Azerbaijan [3] 
Ethiopia 
Turkey 
Sweden/Eritrea 
Egypt 
Colombia 
Philippines 
Belarus 
Palestine 