(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Bruges, Belgium, 27 May 2002 The Golden Pen of Freedom The World Association of Newspapers on Monday awarded its annual press freedom prize, the 2002 Golden Pen of Freedom, to Geoffrey Nyarota, Editor of the Daily News in Zimbabwe, in recognition of his outstanding service to […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Bruges, Belgium, 27 May 2002
The Golden Pen of Freedom
The World Association of Newspapers on Monday awarded its annual press freedom prize, the 2002 Golden Pen of Freedom, to Geoffrey Nyarota, Editor of the Daily News in Zimbabwe, in recognition of his outstanding service to the cause of press freedom in the face of constant persecution.
“I receive this award today on behalf of the beleaguered and much terrorised journalists of Zimbabwe,” said Mr Nyarota, in accepting the award just one week after he was arrested and briefly jailed in a continuing campaign of government harassment.
“It is my very sincere hope, nay, my fervent prayer that in the not-too-distant future the people of Zimbabwe will collectively receive a major media award befitting of our once prosperous national genuine press,” he said.
The presentation was made during the opening ceremonies of the 55th World Newspaper Congress and 9th World Editors Forum, which drew 900 newspaper publishers, senior executives, and editors from 79 countries to Belgium for the four-day annual meetings of the world’s press.
Mr Nyarota, 50, is Editor-in-Chief of the privately-owned Daily News, which was launched in 1999 and has become the largest circulating daily newspaper in Zimbabwe with sales of more than 100,000 copies per day. Its most serious rival, the government-controlled Herald, has seen its circulation decline from more than 150,000 to about 60,000 a day over the same period.
The newspaper achieved its success with independent coverage and investigative reporting of corruption, human rights abuses and economic mismanagement. That has brought down the wrath of the government and its supporters.
A bomb destroyed the printing press of the Daily News last year and its offices were attacked in April 2000. Its editors and reporters have been arrested on numerous occasions and a reported plot to kill Mr Nyarota failed last year.
Most recently, Mr Nyarota was arrested and briefly detained on 20 May on allegations of publishing “falsehoods” and violating the draconian Access to Information and Protection Act.
“It has become almost every week that Mr Nyarota himself or one of his reporters at the Daily News have to spend the night in jail, on some false accusation from the authorities or from hired provocateurs,” said Gloria Brown Anderson, President of the World Editors Forum, who presented the award.
“Geoffrey Nyarota has been tireless in denouncing corruption and criminal activities among top government officials in his country despite two bomb attacks against his paper and several death threats against himself,” she said. “With a quiet but unyielding determination, he has put his newspapers at the forefront of the battle to keep an independent and critical press alive in Zimbabwe.”
Mr Nyarota rose to prominence in Zimbabwe when he was appointed editor of the Bulawayo daily The Chronicle in 1983, three years after Robert Mugabe had been elected president.
In a tense and violent political climate, The Chronicle was one of the few Zimbabwean newspapers to pursue investigations into government corruption. When Mr Nyarota exposed the “Willowgate” scandal, forcing five cabinet ministers to resign, he was removed from his editorial position by his company, Zimbabwe Newspapers, for his “own safety.”
Mr Nyarota became Editor for the weekly Financial Gazette in 1991 but was dismissed in a dispute over editorial control of the paper. He then joined the Nordic School of Journalism in Maputo, Mozambique, and travelled and taught extensively in southern Africa. He returned to Zimbabwe in 1998 with the formation of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, which was soon to launch the Daily News.
He is also the 2002 laureate of the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
WAN, the global association of the newspaper industry, has awarded the Golden Pen annually since 1961. Past winners include Argentina’s Jacobo Timerman (1980), Russia’s Sergei Grigoryants (1989), China’s Gao Yu (1995), and Vietnam’s Doan Viet Hoat (1998). The 2001 winners were San San Nweh and U Win Tin of Burma.
Editors: Photos of Geoffrey Nyarota are available for use from the WAN web site, www.wan-press.org/congress.forum/photos.html or by request.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 71 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 14 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups.
