Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.
The inaugural Freedom of Expression Awards were offered in: Courageous defence of free expression; best circumvention of censorship; whistleblower of the year; and an ironic award for services to censorship.
Grigory Pasko, a former naval officer and journalist with the Russian Navy’s newspaper, was imprisoned in 1997 for exposing the illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Sea of Japan in his investigative reports. Since his release in 2003, he is campaigning for human rights and the protection of the environment.
Lauri Cranor, Avi Rubin and Marc Waldman invented the Publius Publishing System that is highly resistant to censorship and provides publishers with a high degree of anonymity.
Mashallah Shamsolvaezin is a prominent Iranian journalist and press rights activist. In April 2000 he was sentenced to 30 months in jail for ‘insulting Islamic values’ after criticising Iran’s capital punishment practices in public. He was released on bail before finishing his sentence. The newspapers, he was editing, were successively banned between 1998 and 2000.
An ironic award was presented UK Ministry of Defence for prosecuting a whistleblower under the Official Secrets Act.
