DW Freedom of Speech Award

DW Freedom of Speech Award at a glance

Text Ala Zainalabidean, DW editor

Promoting democratic values, human rights and intercultural dialogue has been at the heart of DW’s mission. For eight years, the DW Freedom of Speech Award has recognized persons or organizations for their exceptional contribution to freedom rights, notably press freedom and freedom of expression. The award ceremony is hosted at the annual DW conference Global Media Forum in Bonn. Once a year, the GMF organizes talks and keynote speeches, inviting many international experts on media freedom.

Since 2015 the laureates of DW Freedom of Speech Award are: Raif Badawi, Sedat Ergin, White House Correspondents’ Association, Sadegh Zibakalam, Anabel Hernández, independent international journalists reporting on COVID-19 and Tobore Ovuorie.

This year, DW conferred its Freedom of Speech Award to Associated Press journalists Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka in recognition of their courageous reporting from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Their AP report, “20 days in Mariupol: The team that documented city’s agony”, documents photographs of the devastation of war that became the defining images of the siege of Mariupol. The only international journalists left in the embattled city, Chernov and Maloletka risked their lives daily to chronicle the Russian war in a city cut off from the outside world. Their firsthand account of the deaths, devastation, and the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol reveals the frightening reality of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and highlights why independent journalism is so vital to counter the spread of disinformation and bring stories that the world needs to hear. They escaped the city with the help of Ukrainian soldiers while being hunted down by Russian forces.

First laureate of DW Freedom of Speech Award 2015 is Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was arrested and detained in Saudi Arabia in June 2012 on charges of “insulting Islam”. He has been released March 2022 after serving a 10-year sentence for advocating an end to religious influence on public life.

Former Hürriyet editor-in-chief Sedat Ergin received the Freedom of Speech Award 2016 in recognition of his commitment to press freedom and steadfastness in the face of the growing crackdown on free speech in Turkey. Ergin accepted the award while being tried for allegedly insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

DW Freedom of Speech Award 2017 was conferred on the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) for promoting freedom of expression and reporting on the front lines of US President Donald Trump’s administration, a president who labeled the media as “the enemy of the American people”.

DW Freedom of Speech Award 2018 went to Iranian political scientist Sadegh Zibakalam, an outspoken critic of the government’s domestic and foreign policy decisions. In an interview with DW Farsi in 2018, he attributed the then nationwide unrest in Iran to the discontent of the Iranian public and was subsequently accused of “spreading propaganda against the state” and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández received DW Freedom of Speech Award 2019 for exposing corruption, drug trafficking and violence in Mexico. Her exposés La Verdadera Noche de Iguala (A Massacre in Mexico) released in 2016, and Los Señores del Narco (Narcoland) in 2010, uncover state complicity with the drug cartels. Having suffered death threats and intimidation aimed at her family, Hernández now lives in Europe and is a regular contributor to DW Español.

The DW Freedom of Speech Award 2020 honored 17 journalists from 14 countries reporting on COVID-19. Accomplished at great personal risk, their coverage has combatted fake news, revealed pandemic-related corruption and exposed press freedom violations.

In 2021, investigative journalist Tobore Ovuorie was awarded the DW Freedom of Speech Award in recognition of her intrepid investigation into a human trafficking ring in Nigeria. Her report helped bring down a transnational ring in Nigeria involved in sex trafficking and illicit organ trade.