(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release: Carmen Gurruchaga (Spain) winner of 2000 Reporters sans frontières – Fondation de France Prize The Reporters sans frontières – Fondation de France 2000 prize has been awarded to the Spanish Basque journalist Carmen Gurruchaga from the daily El Mundo. This journalist with the “Basque Country” edition […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF press release:
Carmen Gurruchaga (Spain) winner of 2000 Reporters sans frontières – Fondation de France Prize
The Reporters sans frontières – Fondation de France 2000 prize has been awarded to the Spanish Basque journalist Carmen Gurruchaga from the daily El Mundo. This journalist with the “Basque Country” edition of El Mundo has been a victim of ETA terrorist violence several times. Threatened with death, she decided to move to Madrid where she has continued working for El Mundo, but under police protection like about fifty other Spanish colleagues. Despite her exile, Carmen Gurruchaga remains a symbol of resistance to ETA terrorism.
The prize was awarded on:
Friday 27 October 2000 at 11:30 a.m.
at l’Espace Electra – 6, rue Récamier – 75007 Paris
(M° Sèvres-Babylone)
Carmen Gurruchaga has devoted her life to journalism and to the struggle for truth and the right to inform. Born in 1955 in San Sebastian in Spanish Basque Country, she worked for the dailies Unidad de San Sebastian and then Diario 16, before joining the team of the “Basque Country” edition of El Mundo. The journalist has been an ETA target several times. On 22 December 1997 a bomb exploded in front of her home, where she was living alone with her two sons. Threatened with death, like all her colleagues at the newspaper, she decided to leave for Madrid. In 1999 her editor-in-chief followed suit. Carmen Gurruchaga’s name is still on ETA’s “black lists”. Today, exiled from her home town, Carmen is still working for El Mundo but is constantly under police protection. On 22 October, a parcel bomb is sent to a member of the San Sebastian Bar, José Maria Muguruza. The explosive was placed in a copy of the book published this year by Carmen Gurruchaga and the journalist Isabel San Sebastian, “El arbol y las nueces” (The Tree and the Walnuts), which deals with relations between the Basque Radical Party and ETA.
It is currently very difficult and dangerous for journalists to practise their profession freely in Spanish Basque Country. Thirteen serious attacks against journalists have been recorded since 1997. Since the beginning of 2000 a campaign of spiralling violence has been launched by ETA against the media and journalists. A series of attacks against the head offices of newspapers such as El Correo or El Diaro Vasco, and against journalists such as Carlos Herrera, journalist with Radio nationale espagnole, culminated on 7 May 2000 in the murder of José Luis Lopez de Lacalle, journalist for the “Basque Country” edition of El Mundo. About 50 journalists and editors are currently under police escort in Basque Country and in Madrid. About one hundred journalists are under either official or private protection and about ten press professionals from Basque Country have gone into exile. Several media, including El Mundo, have had to take security measures.
The Reporters sans frontières – Fondation de France 50,000 French franc prize has been awarded annually since 1992 to journalists who, in the course of their work and through their standpoint and attitude, have attested to their attachment to press freedom. The prize has been awarded:
– in 1992, to Zlatko Dizdarevic, from the Sarajevo daily Oslobodenje,
– in 1993, to Wang Juntao (China), journalist with L’Hebdomadaire économique,
– in 1994, to André Sibomana (Rwanda), director of the magazine Kinyamateka,
– in 1995, to Chris Anyanwu (Nigeria), editor-in-chief of the newspaper Sunday Magazine,
– in 1996, to Isik Yurtçu (Turkey), managing editor of the pro-Kurde Ozgür Gündem,
– in 1997, to Raúl Rivero (Cuba), founder of the news agency Cuba Press,
– in 1998, to Nizar Nayyouf (Syria), editor-in-chief of La Voix de la Démocratie,
– in 1999 to journalist and novelist San San Nweh (Burma).
This year, four other journalists were selected by the jury: Ignacio Gomez, head of the “investigation” section of the daily El Espectator (Colombia); Reza Alijani, former editor-in-chief of the reformist monthly Iran Farda (Iran); M’Baya Tshimanga, former journalist and founder of the association “Journalist in Danger” (Democratic Republic of Congo); Miroslav Filipovic, correspondent of the Serbian independent daily Danas and Agence France-Presse (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
