The award was accepted on behalf of all Gaza’s journalists, by Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS). He said: “The price of conveying the truth in Palestine has become the life of the journalist, and sometimes his or the life of his or her family. All media institutions in Gaza have been destroyed, and foreign journalists have also been excluded from the enclave”.
Making the award, Weibel said: “as humanity, we have a huge debt to (Palestinian journalists) courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.
Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO’s director general said: “This year, the Prize reminds us of the importance of collective action to ensure that journalists around the world can continue to carry out their essential work to inform and investigate.”
The IFJ nominated its affiliate the PJS for this award; the union will receive a $25,000 prize from UNESCO.
Since 7 October, more than 100 journalists and media workers in Gaza have lost their lives in Israeli attacks – a mortality rate of more than ten per cent. Nearly all the enclave’s 1,000 or so reporters have lost family members, their offices and their homes. Many are now desperately hungry and short of basic necessities.
The prize is made in the name of Guillermo Cano the Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia, on 17 December 1986.
Watch the award ceremony of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Speech by Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PJS) starts at 1h 02min.
Speech by Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate
Santiago, Chile, 2nd May 2024
“Peace to Gaza because it deserves it. Peace to Gaza and the journalists of Gaza, and all of Palestine, who deserve love and hope.
Peace to the journalists of Gaza who have not slept for seven months.
Yet they have remained committed to the principles of the ethics of journalism.
Their union, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, has remained committed to the principles of defending press freedom and protecting journalists.
Today we stand before you in this great historical event, with the award of UNESCO Guillermo-Cano World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza, which was handed over to me a little while ago.
I feel joy and pride, but it is a joy mixed with sadness for the loss of the martyrs of the Palestinian press. It is also mixed with determination and willingness to hold accountable and prosecute the criminals who killed this constellation.
It is a great honor for me to stand today before you to speak on behalf of Palestinian journalists in our beloved Gaza.
They are the voice of truth and will continue to resound in the corners of the world.
I came to you today from my homeland, Palestine, to Santiago to speak on behalf of the journalists of Gaza, witnesses to the truth and witnesses to one the worst and largest slaughters that media has witnessed. More than 135 journalists have been killed so far.
My colleague and brother journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, was supposed to stand with us today on this platform, but his health condition did not allow him to be present.
Seven months have passed since this war began, with all its details and chapters, in which the Israeli occupation killed the best of our journalists, destroyed more than 80 media institutions, displaced journalists in tents and hospital yards, and injured dozens of them. The lives of journalists have become the price of reporting the truth in Palestine and in many cases the life of their families. However, our journalists in Gaza have continued to report on the most horrific wars in the history of humanity.
Foreign journalists have been prevented from entering Gaza for media coverage. This is unprecedented. Gaza's journalists worked under shelling, among corpses and destruction, in extreme cold, hunger and thirst for months. They have lost their homes and family members, nevertheless they continued to work with the highest professional standards. They did not falsify any picture or news and did not incite anyone against anyone else despite the incitement to hatred against them.
I am certain that they have become the important professional model - one that does the impossible, to convey the truth, despite the sea of blood.
As I stand before you, I remember dozens or even hundreds of colleagues, journalists in our beloved Gaza, members of the syndicate. The tragedy in Gaza is so severe and the coverage its details by Gaza journalists has been pivotal to the uncovering of the truth. My heart bleeds for their pain and suffering as I listen daily to the details of the tragedy that must stop, but despite the pain, their will is strong and their determination will never stop, no matter what the occupation does them.
They want to kill Gaza and our Palestinian people, but I will quote the international Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.
“Gaza does not die because it knows the value of life,” and the journalists of Gaza will not die because they have the will and determination.
Darwish also said twenty years ago, “If they ask you about Gaza, tell them that it has a martyr, a martyr helps him, a martyr takes pictures of him, a martyr bids him farewell, and a martyr prays over him.”
This is the case of Gazans and this is the state of Gazan journalists.
The recommendation of the UNESCO’s Guillermo Cano jury to award the 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to all Palestinian journalists covering Gaza is in itself a strong message that we received with appreciation. Justice for journalists will be achieved and the United Nations organizations have begun to take their role in doing justice to journalists, including UNESCO, the UN organisation with the mandate to promote the protection journalists and media freedom and the application of international law regarding the protection of media freedom and the protection of journalists.
Seven months later, I can't believe how many colleagues we've lost. There was time when they felt that the world has turned away. This is not surprising given the scale of the loss, especially the number of those who have lost their entire families. This award which I am prepared to collect on behalf of all of them is positive proof that their suffering has not gone unnoticed.
From here in Santiago, we say to the whole world that the Journalists’ Syndicate, together with the International Federation of Journalists and all the journalists’ unions in the world, will continue to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against journalists. We call on the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Karim Khan, to quickly start investigating these crimes in order to implement United Nations resolutions to ensure that perpetrators of crimes against journalists do not go unpunished.
The Palestinian journalists who have covered the war on Gaza, including all members of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, are honored today with the most important press freedom award in the world, awarded by UNESCO, at a time that coincides with the 100 anniversary of the establishment of the first Journalists’ Syndicate in Palestine, the first in the Arab world.
We thank the International Federation of Journalists, and UNESCO in Paris and in Ramallah, for standing for justice, for respecting and appreciating the journalists that are among the victims of the war in Gaza, and honouring them for their steadfastness and for conveying the truth of the tragedy, despite the great challenges and inhumane conditions they are faced with.
We will remain faithful to the principles of human rights, freedom and justice.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate will remain the guardian of freedoms in Palestine and the faithful defender of the freedom of the press and journalists as a sacred right for journalists.
Finally, the awarding of this Press Freedom will certainly not bring back our beloved martyred journalists, but it has restored our hope that the world is for justice.
Thank you all”.