The Press Emblem Campaign award 2012 for the protection of journalists goes to Syrian militants informing the world on the Syria revolution since the beginning of the uprising in 2011.
The decision of the award committee was to honour the work of Syrian militants and their relentless efforts to inform the world about the ongoing Syrian revolution, while risking their lives with imprisonment and torture.
According to Doha Centre of Media Freedom, 35 reporters and citizen journalists have been killed in Syria so far.
PEC President Hedayat Abdelnabi stressed that this year’s PEC award honours the sacrifice of the Syrian people and all militant fighters defending freedom of expression.
The Syrian Centre for Media Freedom was attacked and shut down on February 16 by Syrian authorities.
The President of the Syrian Democrats Tawfik Chamaa accepted the award and said “that the magnitude of the catastrophe where Syrians killed are displayed on the roads, corpses of women and children are under the rubbles of cities and towns destroyed by artillery attacks, will awaken the world to a very fearful scene.”
The PEC award goes to an individual or a group that has had an outstanding mark in defending journalists and freedom of the press worldwide.
The PEC award since its inception in 2009 went to the militant Palestinian NGO MADA for its role during the Israeli offensive against Gaza. In 2010 it went to the Centre for freedom and media responsibility in the Philippines following the massacre of 33 journalists, and in 2011 it went to the militants of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
