WAN-IFRA awards Golden Pen of Freedom

Zeid-Abadi, who is serving a six-year prison sentence, was honoured during a ceremony at the opening of the World Editors Forum in Hamburg, Germany, on Wednesday, 6 October 2010, for "his courageous actions in the face of persecution and for his outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom."

Iranian re-election dispute

Zeid-Abadi was among at least 110 journalists arrested following the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. At least 23 remain behind bars, about a fifth of all journalists imprisoned
worldwide.

"Though we honour Mr Zeid-Abadi here today, it is also important to remember the other jailed journalists, the ones who don't win awards but nevertheless suffer under despotic regimes," said Xavier Vidal-Folch, president of the World Editors Forum, who presented the award. "We should never forget them and we in the international newspaper community should do our utmost to win their release."

Accepted by Akbar Ganji

The award was accepted on behalf of Zeid-Abadi by Akbar Ganji, the 2006 Golden Pen laureate who had also been imprisoned by the Iranian regime.

"Iran today is under the occupation of a band of deceitful liars," Ganji said, at times breaking into tears during the ceremony. "The occupying regime of the Shi¹i clerics has targeted the moral foundation of the society
and is determined to portray moral vices as virtues. Usually foreign occupiers occupy a country territorially. But these occupiers have targeted the dignity and integrity of a nation. In what these people in position of power do there is not a trace of commitment to ethics, propriety, or truthfulness."

"Ahmad Zeid-Abadi was among those who opposed this tyrannical rule that has violated the constitutional rights of the people and thus jail and solitary confinement has become his lot," Ganji said.

"I have no doubt that if Ahmad Zeidabadi was here with us, he would have shared the honor of this prestigious prize with other political prisoners. One must interpret these awards as a kind of ethical and moral endorsement
of democratic activists who are committed to liberty and human rights."

Read Akbar Ganji's full speech.
Read Xavier Vidal-Folch's speech.

Open letter from prison

Ahmad Zeid-Abadi, an academic and political commentator as well as a journalist, is known for an open letter he wrote from prison in 2000 protesting the judiciary's treatment of imprisoned journalists. The letter was widely distributed despite attempts by the authorities to suppress its publication.

Zeid-Abadi, the former chief editor of the Azad newspaper and a contributor to the Tehran-based daily Hamshahari and the BBC Persian service, was among dozens of journalists who were systematically rounded up and detained following the disputed presidential election in June 2009.

He was tried in August 2009, along with more than 40 other journalists and 100 prominent supporters of the country's pro-reform movement, on charges of plotting to overthrow the clerical theocracy with a "soft revolution." He was sentenced to six years in prison, five years in internal exile and a lifetime writing ban.

Hunger strike

One week after his trial began, Zeid-Abadi went on a hunger strike to protest his detention, and was hospitalised for 17 days when he was found unconscious in his cell.

"Ahmad Zeid-Abadi languishes in an Iranian prison, held under appalling conditions, merely for the crime of doing a job that most of us in this room do without fear of intimidation, attack, imprisonment or even death," Vidal-Folch said to the more than 500 chief editors and journalists gathered for the annual World Editors Forum.

Zeid-Abadi has been in and out of prison since 2000. In an interview following his imprisonment nearly a decade ago, he described conditions in Evin prison saying: "The desperation they create in prison is so bad you think it's the end of the world. The criminals use rape, especially with newcomers. And when you're taken everywhere blindfolded and hear horrible, scary screams, and you are put in a tiny cell, you have the feeling that you will never see normal life again.

Past winners

In presenting the award, WAN-IFRA and the World Editors Forum again called for the release of all jailed journalists in Iran.

The Golden Pen of Freedom is the annual award made by WAN-IFRA to recognize the outstanding actions, in writing and deed, of an individual, a group or an institution in the case of press freedom.

Past winners of the Golden Pen, awarded annually since 1961, include Argentina's Jacobo Timerman (1980), South Africa's Anthony Heard (1986), Vietnam's Doan Viet Hoat (1998), Zimbabwe's Geoffrey Nyarota (2002), and China's Shi Tao (2007) and Li Changqing (2008). The 2009 laureate is Najam Sethi of Pakistan.

View full list of laureates