UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize

The UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, created in 1997, honours a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.

The prize, worth US$ 25,000, is awarded each year on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May.

The prize is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, the editor of the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, who was murdered in Bogotá on 17 December 1986. Cano was a vocal critic of the country's powerful drug barons.

Each year, an independent jury ^[1] of six news professionals selected by the UNESCO Director-General selects a winner from the many nominations submitted by non-governmental organizations working in the field of press freedom, and by UNESCO Member States. The jury remains in charge for a period of three years, renewable once.

The anti-mafia Italian journalist Marilù Mastrogiovanni serves as Chair of the jury as of 2021. ^[2] Other members of the Jury are:

• Wendy Funes (Honduras), investigative journalist;
• David Dembele (Mali), Editor-in-chief of the Depêche du Mali/L’Investigateur;
• Hamid Mir (Pakistan), Executive Editor of Geo Television Pakistan;
• Alfred Lela (Albania), Political Analyst on News 24 and Founder and Director of Politiko;
• Zainab Salbi (Iraq), As a journalist, she created and hosted several shows including: #MeToo, Now What? on PBS (2018)

Award Winners

Year	Recipient	Country
1997	Gao Yu	China
1998	Christina Anyanwu	Nigeria
1999	Jesús Blancornelas	Mexico
2000	Nizar Nayyouf	Syria
2001	Win Tin	Myanmar
2002	Geoffrey Nyarota	Zimbabwe
2003	Amira Hass	Israel
2004	Raúl Rivero	Cuba
2005	Cheng Yizhong	China
2006	May Chidiac	Lebanon
2007	Anna Politkovskaya	Russia (posthumous award)
2008	Lydia Cacho Ribeiro	Mexico
2009	Lasantha Wickrematunge	Sri Lanka (posthumous award)
2010	Mónica González Mujica	Chile
2011	Ahmad Zeidabadi	Iran
2012	Eynulla Fatullayev	Azerbaijan [3]
2013	Reeyot Alemu	Ethiopia
2014	Ahmet Şık	Turkey
2015	Mazen Darwish	Syria
2016	Khadija Ismayilova	Azerbaijan
2017	Dawit Isaak	Sweden/Eritrea
2018	Mahmoud Abu Zeid [4]	Egypt
2019	Kyaw Soe Oo & Wa Lone [5]	Myanmar
2020	Jineth Bedoya Lima	Colombia
2021	Maria Ressa [6]	Philippines
2022	Belarusian Association of Journalists	Belarus
2023	Niloofar Hamedi, Elaheh Mohammadi, Narges Mohammadi [7]	Iran
2024	Palestinian journalists covering Gaza [8]	Palestine
2025	La Prensa newspaper [9]	Nicaragua

See also

• Freedom of speech portal

• World Press Freedom Day
• William O. Douglas Prize

References

1. "The Jury". UNESCO. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
2. "Two leading women journalists to join 2021 Jury of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize". UNESCO. 15 January 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
3. "World Press Freedom Day 3 May in Tunis". Afrique en ligne. 24 April 2012.
4. "Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, aka Shawkan, to receive 2018 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize". 23 April 2018.
5. "Jailed Reuters reporters, U.S. border photographers win Pulitzer Prizes". Reuters. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
6. "Embattled Philippine journalist wins UN press prize". Yahoo! News . Agence France-Presse. 27 April 2021. Archived from the original on 27 April 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
7. "Three imprisoned Iranian women journalists awarded 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize". UNESCO. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
8. "Palestinian journalists covering Gaza awarded 2024 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize". UNESCO. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
9. "Nicaragua is quitting a UN agency over a press freedom award. Here's a look at the issue". AP. Retrieved 5 May 2024.

External links

• Official website