WASHINGTON — This time last year, American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was in a Russian prison, jailed on bogus charges.
On Thursday night, free from her ordeal, she accepted a prestigious press freedom award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, in New York.
“This is a very emotional moment for me. It means so much,” Kurmasheva told VOA shortly before receiving her award. “I will take this opportunity to address the whole world to repeat again that journalism is not a crime and all journalists who are behind bars today should be released at once.”
A dual U.S.-Russian national who works at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, Kurmasheva was jailed in Russia for more than nine months on charges widely viewed as politically motivated.
During her acceptance speech, Kurmasheva recounted her experience in prison. “I tried not to look up as the snow was falling because I couldn’t bear seeing the many layers of barbed wire between me and the sky,” she said.
Kurmasheva, American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other political prisoners were released from Russia this August in a historic prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
“It’s an awesome responsibility to be a beacon of light, and my story is an example of the price that can be paid for reporting the truth,” Kurmasheva said Thursday night.
Kurmasheva is among four journalists CPJ honored with its annual International Press Freedom Awards. The others are Quimy de Leon from Guatemala, Samira Sabou from Niger and Shrouq Al Aila from Gaza.
The awardees come from different parts of the globe, but a common thread is how they have encountered efforts to criminalize journalism, said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
“That’s something that we see increasingly across the world, is the use and abuse of laws to punish journalists for speaking truth to power,” Ginsberg told VOA.
During her acceptance speech, Kurmasheva highlighted her RFE/RL colleagues who are still jailed on charges that are widely viewed as retaliatory.
Journalists Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk are jailed in Belarus; Vladyslav Yesypenko is jailed in Russia-occupied Crimea; and Farid Mehralizada is jailed in Azerbaijan. RFE/RL rejects the charges against all of them as false.
“My colleagues are not just statistics. Like me, they’re real human beings with families who miss and love them,” Kurmasheva said.
Like Kurmasheva, de Leon and Sabou know all too well the costs that can come with doing their jobs.
Sabou, an investigative journalist, has faced years of legal harassment over her coverage of governance issues in Niger. The reporter has been jailed on multiple occasions, but she still reports.
“What would the world be without the microphones, cameras and pens of journalists?” Sabou said during her acceptance speech.
Late last month, Sabou told VOA that she plans to use the platform from the award to help improve conditions for journalists in her home country.
“It’s a prize for press freedom, so what we plan to do with it is to work justly to improve the press freedom environment,” she said.
De Leon has also faced legal threats and other forms of harassment over her reporting, which focuses on environmental issues and human rights in Guatemala.
“We have taken risks to tell the stories emerging from our realities and to seek truth, even when it means challenging power,” she said Thursday night.
The black-tie gala was hosted this year by John Oliver, who hosts the Emmy-winning satirical news show “Last Week Tonight.”
During his opening remarks, Oliver noted that press freedom experts predict the First Amendment will be under threat in the United States during President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
“It looks like we are going to be called on to defend journalists and media freedom right here in the United States,” Oliver said.
In Ginsberg’s remarks, she said CPJ will defend journalists wherever they are under threat. “In this moment, we will not be bullied. We will not deviate from our mission, not shrink from the challenges we face, including and especially here in the U.S.,” she said.
Not all of the awardees were able to attend. Al Aila, the Palestinian journalist, was unable to leave Gaza because of the Israel-Hamas war.
The war is the deadliest conflict on record for journalists, according to CPJ data. As of Thursday, at least 137 journalists and media workers were killed in the conflict, including 129 Palestinians, two Israelis and six Lebanese.
“Not only has it been impossible for international journalists to get into Gaza, but increasingly, almost impossible for journalists or anyone else to get out of Gaza,” Ginsberg told VOA. “We are thinking of [Al Aila] and all journalists who are working under unimaginable conditions currently in Gaza.”
Al Aila took charge of the independent production company Ain Media after her husband Roshdi Sarraj, who co-founded the company, was killed in the war.
On Thursday night, CPJ also honored the late Christophe Deloire, former head of Reporters Without Borders, with its annual Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. A longtime press freedom advocate, Deloire died in June from cancer.
“To everyone who carries on this legacy — here in the room tonight, and around the world — thank you. This award is for Christophe, for it is also for you,” Deloire’s wife, Perrine Daubas, said in her speech. “Because this fight, now more than ever, is ours.”
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