Committee to Protect Journalists Recognizes 4 Int'l Journalists

Naziha Réjiba, editor of the Tunisian online news journal Kalima, said she knows what to expect when she returns home: surveillance, harassment, and threats conducted by one the world’s most repressive governments.

“While I’m speaking, many homes of Tunisian journalists are completely surrounded,” Réjiba, one of four recipients of the 2009 International Press Freedom Awards, said Nov. 19 at the National Press Club.

The Committee to Protect Journalists gives the awards each year to courageous journalists working in dangerous and repressive circumstances.

CPJ also introduced awardee Mustafa Haji Abdinur, an Agence France-Presse correspondent and editor-in-chief of Radio Simba in Somalia. Two other CPJ awardees, J.S. Tissainayagam of Sri Lanka and Eynulla Fatullayev of Azerbaijan, were recognized but not present. They are imprisoned in their home countries in retaliation for their work