Palestine: The UNESCO Guillermo Cano Prize 2024 awarded to journalists in Gaza

The UNESCO Guillermo Cano Prize was awarded to journalists in Gaza on Thursday 2 May in Santiago, Chile, as part of World Press Freedom Day. Nasser Abu Baker, President of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS) and Vice-President of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), received the Unesco prize on behalf of his colleagues in Gaza.

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Nasser Abu Baker, President of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS) and Vice-President of the IFJ, received the UNESCO prize on behalf of his colleagues in Gaza. Credit: Zuliana Lainez/IFJ.

UNESCO has recognised the unique suffering and fearless reporting of Gaza's journalists by awarding them the annual Guillermo-Cano World Press Freedom Prize. More than 100 journalistsand media workers have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza since 7 October, nearly all the rest have been injured, displaced or bereaved.

In February, the International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest professional organisation of journalists, nominatedthe Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate for the award. So it was its President, Nasser Abu Baker, who received the prize on World Press Freedom Day in Santiago de Chile on 2 May, on behalf of all the journalists in Gaza.

From the start of the conflict 7 months ago, Israel closed Gaza's borders to international journalists, and none have been allowed free access to the enclave since. At the same time, a thousand Gazan journalists were working at the start of the war, and more than a hundred of them were killed. As a result, the profession has suffered a mortality rate in excess of 10% (this rate is around six times higher than the mortality rate of the general population of Gaza and around three times higher than that of health professionals).

PJS President Nasser Abu Baker said: "Journalists in Gaza have endured a sustained attack by the Israeli army of unprecedented ferocity - but have continued to do their jobs, as witnesses to the carnage around them. It is justified that they should be honoured on World Press Freedom Day. What we have seen in Gaza is surely the most sustained and deadly attack on press freedom in history. This award shows that the world has not forgotten and salutes their sacrifice for information."

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger said: "This prize is a real tribute to the commitment to information of journalists in Gaza. For the past seven months, the IFJ has been supporting journalists in Gaza through PJS, the only representative professional organisation in Palestine, by providing them with first aid equipment, batteries for their phones, tents, clothing and food. Journalists in Gaza are starving, homeless and in mortal danger. Unesco's recognition of what they are still enduring is a huge and well-deserved boost. During my last mission to Palestine in November 2023, I was deeply touched by the way I looked at and talked to my colleague. I will never forget them. Just as I will never forget their incredible determination."

• Further information in French: Anthony Bellanger, IFJ General Secretary: [email protected]
• Further information in English: Tim Dawson, IFJ Deputy General Secretary: [email protected]
• Further information in Spanish: Zuliana Lainez, IFJ Senior Vice President: [email protected]

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicateis the professional representative organisation for journalists in Palestine. Unusually among Palestinian trades unions, its 2,300 members are based in both Gaza and the West Bank. Approximately 80 percent of journalists in Palestine are members. Its last congress, held in May 2023, was attended by around 1,000 members.

Nasser Abu Bakeris the PJS President and the IFJ Vice-President. For many years he worked as a reporter for Agence France-Presse. He continues to work as a journalist alongside his duties with the Syndicate. Originally from Jenin, he now lives in Ramallah, where PJS is based.

Created in 1997, the annual UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prizehonours a person, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence of, or promotion of, press freedom anywhere in the world, and especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.

The Prize was established on the initiative of UNESCO's Executive Board and is formally conferred by UNESCO, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, on 3 May.

It is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia on 17 December 1986.