{"id":17773,"date":"2020-11-20T14:16:15","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T09:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=17773"},"modified":"2020-11-20T14:16:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T09:16:15","slug":"bangladeshi-journalist-wins-intl-press-freedom-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/17773","title":{"rendered":"Bangladeshi journalist wins int\u2019l Press Freedom Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dhaka,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist, Shahidul Alam, is among four journalists who have won this year\u2019s International Press Freedom Award for their courage and fearless reporting in adverse environments.<\/p>\n<p>The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which is working for press freedom worldwide, organized a virtual event Friday with the motto that \u201cjournalism matters more than ever and solidarity has never been more important\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether covering the pandemic or protests, journalists everywhere are under attack,\u201d American actress Meryl Streep said during the event, hosted by NBC\u2019s Lester Holt. \u201cThe very truth they seek to bring us is under attack,\u201d Streep said.<\/p>\n<p>Mohammad Mosaed from Iran, who was recently sentenced to more than four years in prison and banned from practicing journalism because of his critical reporting, was honored with the prestigious award.<\/p>\n<p>Dapo Olorunyomi, veteran Nigerian journalist and publisher of the newspaper Premium Times, also won the award.<\/p>\n<p>Another awardee, Svetlana Prokopyeva, a Russian correspondent for Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, this year was convicted of \u201cjustifying terrorism.\u201d Prokopyeva noted in her speech that in Russia \u201cjournalism is often equaled to crime. We are sliding into totalitarianism again. Because if there is no freedom of speech, other freedoms are out of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Awardee Shahidul Alam is the founder of Bangladeshi multimedia organization Pathshala Media Institute and the Drik Picture Library Ltd.<\/p>\n<p>Alam was detained by a group of about 40 men who said they were from the detective branch of Dhaka police in August 2018 hours before he was interviewed by Al-Jazeera and posted a video on Facebook about protests by Bangladeshi students calling for safer roads after two children were killed by a bus in late July 2018.<\/p>\n<p>When Alam appeared in court, he was unable to walk without assistance and said he had been tortured. \u201cI was hit in custody,\u201d he told journalists later.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2018, 102 days after he was detained, Alam was freed on bail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJournalists speak truth to power,\u201d Alam said in a #FreeThePress video CPJ published in April, calling on governments to release all jailed journalists in light of COVID-19. \u201cThat is why, generally, they end up in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Streep also presented lawyer Amal Clooney with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dhaka,\u00a0 A renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist, Shahidul Alam, is among four journalists who have won this year\u2019s International Press Freedom Award for their courage and fearless reporting in adverse environments. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which is working for press freedom worldwide, organized a virtual event Friday with the motto that \u201cjournalism matters more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangladesh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17775,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions\/17775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}