The awards, organized by the LiberPress Association, aim to open a space for debate on the role of the media in society, and to reward the world-wide personalities, especially journalists, who have Outstanding for its independent, democratic and solidarity work.
These are the winners of the LiberPress awards of the 2005 edition.
Winners of the LiberPress 2005 edition
Parallel activities – Conferences carried out
Bosnia, ten years later
Gervasio Sánchez
Correspondent and war photographer.
Boban Minic
Bosnian journalist.
Emigration: yesterday and today
Paco Candel
Writer.
Margarita García O’Meany
Director of the Paco Candel Foundation.
Karim Sabni
Head of AMICS (UGT).
Mediterranean, geopolitical reality or dividing line
Xavier Batalla
Born in Barcelona in 1948. He is the Diplomatic Correspondent of La Vanguardia newspaper, Deputy Director of Vanguardia Dossier and a member of the Scientific Council of Elcano Royal Institute for International Studies. He holds degrees in Journalism and Arts.
His professional career as a journalist began in 1972 in El Correo Catalán, where he was the head of the International section. In 1977 he joined Diario de Barcelona as Editor-in-Chief; Two years later he was appointed Deputy Director.
From 1986 to 1989 he was a correspondent for La Vanguardia in London. As Diplomatic Correspondent, he has reported on events that include the first multi-party elections in the countries of the former Communist bloc, the transition to democracy in South Africa and the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
He has published Afganistán. La guerra del siglo XXI (2002), based on the chronicles “Diario del conflicto”, published in La Vanguardia, for which he received the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona de Periodisme 2001, and Por qué Irak? (2003).
Ali Lmrabet
He was born in 1959 in a very simple family in northern Morocco and is the eldest of 14 brothers. He started writing for Le Quotidien du Maroc. In 1997 he worked for the weekly La Vie Economique. Later he became editor-in-chief of the weekly Le Journal. He was the author of the first interview in an Arab country with an Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu (1998). He also interviewed Malika Ufkir, the daughter of the colonel who led the coup d’état against Hassan II in 1972. On 11 March 2000, he founded the magazine Demain which was closed shortly afterwards by Yusufi’s socialist government. Lmrabet did not give up and opened Demain Magazine. The staff comprised himself and two cartoonists and it was printed in black and white. He also created the first French-language satirical weekly magazine in the country: Douman, which is similar to Hermano Lobo. On 21 May 2003, Lmrabet was sent to Salé prison in Rabat, for an alleged crime of “insults to the king and offences against the monarchy and the territorial integrity of Morocco”. He was sentenced to three years in prison and his publications, Doumane in Arabic and Demain Magazine in French, were closed.
He was in prison until 7 January 2004, when the Moroccan government came under pressure to pardon him. He contributes to El Mundo. Ali Lmrabet is delegate of Reporters Without Borders in Morocco and a symbol in the fight for freedom of expression.
AWARDS: Agustín Merello Award for Communication, from the Cadiz Press Association, 2004; Protagonistes Award in the journalism category, 2003; Mundo Award, 2003; Occidente award for freedom of expression, Asturias, 2003; Reporters Without Borders Award-Fondation de France, 2003.
Edina Kurtagic
Born in Bosnia in 1965, she is married and the mother of two children. In 1988 she graduated in journalism at the Faculty of Political Science in the University of Sarajevo. Before the war in Bosnia she had worked for various newspapers and magazines in Sarajevo: Vecernje Novine, Ven and others. Since 1994, she has been living in L’Escala. During the years 1994 and 1995 she contributed to El Punt newspaper.