The most moving moment of the British Press Awards came as Amnesty International picked up the prize for international journalist of the year on behalf of Iranian Emadeddin Baghi, who founded the Jomhooriyat newspaper.
He is currently serving a year’s prison sentence on charges of ‘acting against international security”.
Baghi said in a statement: ‘The print media has, for me, consistently and continuously been a platform for raising awareness, moral standards,
for spreading awareness of scientific developments in the world, and promoting the notion of separation of powers, pushing ahead our understanding.
‘But in our land, Iran, which has been striving for 150 years to obtain freedom and democracy, we have seen, in the past 10 years, the banning of some 150 newspapers, among them one of mine. Yet none of them had any hostility with the Islamic Republic. They were merely independent of mind and sought reform.”
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