Freedom of The Press Award 2007

Updated 23 May 2008:
ACE IS DELIGHTED TO REPORT THAT YU HUAFENG HAS NOW BEEN RELEASED FROM PRISON

THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS have been particularly challenging for editors and journalists in many parts of the world. According to Reporters without Borders, our partners in choosing the ACE Freedom of the Press Award, over 90 journalists have been killed in the last year in the course of their work and over 200 have been imprisoned by the authorities.

As always, ACE, on behalf of its members and the industry it represents, recognises and rewards the bravery of many of our editorial colleagues by presenting the ACE Freedom of the Press Award.

It is never easy to choose the winner from amongst so many worthy writers who have put up with hardship, repression, imprisonment, physical violence and, sadly on occasions, the ultimate sacrifice, in bringing to their readers the truth as they see it rather than the way the authorities would like it to be told.

Over the last eight years ACE has presented the Award to journalists from as far afield as Cuba, Kazakstan, Zimbabwe, Iran and Mozambique. This year, for the first time, the winner of the Award is from China.

Yu Huafeng is the publisher and deputy editor of the liberal daily newspaper, Nanfang Dushi Bao. He was imprisoned together with a colleague by the Chinese authorities for eight years in June 2004, on false charges of corruption and stealing public funds. In reality he was imprisoned as a direct result of his investigative journalism into the SARS epidemic and the mysterious death of a young man in police custody.

Through Reporters without Borders we would hope that news of this award will eventually reach Yu Huafeng and bring some degree of support and pleasure to him, his colleague and their families.