CPJ honors fearless journalists at 2024 International Press Freedom Awards

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) celebrated four journalists from Gaza, Guatemala, Niger, and Russia at the 34th annual International Press Freedom Awards (IPFA) in New York on Thursday, raising $2.4 million to protect journalists around the world.

The 2024 awardees were all honored for their courage in reporting on their communities while experiencing war, prison, government crackdowns, and increasing efforts to criminalize their work.

This year’s awardees were: Shrouq Al Aila, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza and director of Ain Media, who could not attend as Israel did not permit the Gazan journalist to leave the occupied Palestinian territory to attend the awards; Quimy de León, a Guatemalan journalist and co-founder of Prensa Comunitaria; Samira Sabou; one of Niger’s most prominent investigative journalists, and Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist and editor jailed by Russia in 2023.

In her remarks, CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg mourned the unprecedented killing of journalists over the past year, especially in the Israel-Gaza war: “These deaths should shock and appall us. They should enrage us.”

“At CPJ, we have spent more than four decades involving ourselves in mankind,” said Ginsberg. “But this year, this year has been like no other. We have painstakingly documented the ever-growing attacks on the press, we have raised the alarm over those attacks, and we have demanded action from those in power—whether it be killings in Gaza, or arrests in Russia, or harassment in India.”

The awards were presented by leading journalists and supporters of media freedom: Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, presented to Quimy de Leon; Julie Owono, executive director of Internet Sans Frontiers, presented to Samira Sabou; Radhika Jones, chief editor of Vanity Fair, presented to Alsu Kurmasheva; and Melissa Fleming, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, presented the 2024 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award to Christophe Deloire. Deloire’s award was received by his widow Perrine Daubas.

Leila Fadel, host of NPR’s Morning Edition, recognized Al Aila in absentia as Israel did not permit the Gazan journalist to leave the occupied Palestinian territory to attend the awards. Al Aila assumed the role of director of Ain Media following the killing of her husband, Roshdi Sarraj, on October 22, 2023, by the Israeli military.

“I decided to continue Roshdi’s work because I believe once you are a journalist, you are a journalist for life,” said Al Aila in a video played at the ceremony.

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)