Index on Censorship Award winners 2008

The Guardian Journalism Award

Arat Dink, editor of Turkey’s only Armenian newspaper Agos, is the son of the assassinated journalist Hrant Dink. He continued his assassinated father’s work, providing a media outlet for an oppressed people whilst under continuous harassment by the Turkish authorities. On 11 October 2007 Arat Dink was sentenced to a year in prison for re-publishing his father’s interview to Reuters, where his father had stressed the necessity of recognising the ‘Armenian Genocide’.

http://www.hrantdink.org/en/hrantdink/life/

The Economist New Media Award

Founded by Chinese dissidents, along with journalists, mathematicians and IT experts from around the world, Wikileaks’ aim is to develop ‘an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis’.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks

Index Film Award

Ahlaam (Dreams) by Mohammed Al-Daradji is a powerful depiction of the desperate situation in Iraq before and during the American invasion in 2003. During the making of the film members of the team were abducted, interrogated and even killed.

http://www.ahlaamthemovie.com/

T. R. Fyvel Book Award

The Art of Political Murder: Who killed Bishop Gerardi? by Francisco Goldman uncovers the reality of organized crime and political corruption in Guantemala investigating into the killing of Guatemala’s leading human rights activist.

Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award

U Gambira is the pseudonym of the leader of the All-Burma Monks Alliance, which organised and spearheaded the nationwide protest in Burma in 2007. The brutal crackdown that followed forced him into hiding until he was detained in November 2007 where he his ever since.