Guwahati (The Stellar News): With an aim to honor the memory of all murdered, threatened and censored journalists in Mexico, the Geneva based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) has awarded its annual prize to Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui who has demonstrated exceptional courage in defense of press freedom where 65 journalists were killed in the past five years identifying Mexico as one of the most dangerous country for the journalists in the world.
“Since President Andres Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018, at least 15 scribes have been assassinated, including nine since the start of this year. The Mexican media are also currently severely affected by Covid-19, which has caused the deaths of dozens of journalists in recent months,” said a PEC statement issued from Geneva highlighting the worse situation relating to protection of journalists in the American nation. “We pay tribute to the courage of Mexican journalists. The 2020 PEC Prize goes to Carmen Aristegui for her fight against impunity in Mexico and the corruption that plagues any effective fight to end the killing of journalists,” said Blaise Lempen, secretary general of PEC, which was created in 2004 with consultative status at the United
Nations with an aim to sensitize the international community over strengthening the safety of journalists.
Accepting the PEC award Ms Aristegui termed it as a great honor and a representation a strong incentive to continue our work in Mexico. She greatly appreciated the award which draws attention to the situation of journalists in Mexico. The most brutal form of silencing a journalist is to assassinate him/her. When a journalist is killed, the right of the people to be informed is also assassinated, she commented. Ms Carmen could not travel to Geneva due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A documentary film dedicated to her titled ‘Silence Radio’ was also scheduled to screen as a preview of the award function, but due to measures taken to fight the novel corona virus it was postponed until next year. Directed by Juliana Fanjul (Switzerland / Mexico, 2019, Akka Films) the documentary follows in the footsteps of Ms Carmen who was dismissed in 2015 from the radio station that had employed her for
years after revealing a corruption scandal.
Followed by more than 18 million listeners, Ms Carmen continues her work of investigation and awareness with Aristeguien Vivo, her new daily radio show broadcast on the internet, with the first audience in radio according to the measurement of Nielsen, and her own news website Aristeguinoticias. Carmen is widely regarded as one of Mexico’s leading journalists and opinion leaders. Earlier Ms Carmen received the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Prize 2015 for her research on ‘Casa Blanca’, the Knight Award 2016 from the International Center for Journalists (ICJ, United States) and was chosen by Fortune magazine among the 50 most influential people in the world in 2017 for her journalistic works in Mexico. Previous PEC awards, since its inception in 2009, have gone to Ahmad Quraishi (director of Afghanistan Journalists Center), the assassinated family of Daphne Caruana Galizia (Malta), Hasan Cemal (founding president of Platform for Independent Journalism in Turkey), journalist Zhanna Nemtsova (eldest daughter of Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader killed in February 2015 at the Kremlin Walls), Dunja Mijatovic (Organisation of Security and Cooperation), Liudmyla Zlobina (Crimean Center for Investigative Reporting), Swiss Foundation Hirondelle, etc.
