Raif Badawi Award 2021 goes to Turkish journalist Alican Uludağ

On October 20, 2021, Turkish journalist Alican Uludağ will receive the Raif Badawi Award, which the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, together with the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, presents annually to outstanding, courageous journalists.

At a time when independent journalism is under severe pressure in Turkey, Alican Uludağ`s investigative reporting makes an important contribution to protecting the right to information. Alican Uludağ is a highly respected correspondent who covers cases at the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Court. He regularly exposes corruption and researches the work of law enforcement and security services. Between 2008 and October 2020, he worked as a court reporter for the Cumhuriyet daily newspaper. His reporting has made him a target of pro-government media and the AKP-led government. "He has stood out as a courageous reporter in a difficult to hostile environment, standing for freedom of speech, truth and righteousness. His investigative work is characterized by a constant search for robust evidence. He is fearless and takes great risks in his research," the jury statement reads.

Alican Uludağ has been awarded various prizes for his work, such as the 2020 prize for "Political Reporting" at the Turkey Journalism Awards of the Turkish Journalists' Association (TGC) for a series of reports that exposed the power struggle between the Turkish justice minister and other parts of the judiciary.

Due to the Corona pandemic, the award again cannot be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year. The ceremony will take place virtually at 5 p.m. on Oct. 20. The laudation will be delivered by EU Commission Vice President and Commissioner for Transparency and Values Vĕra Jourová. TV-anchorman and editor of Raif Badawi's texts in German, Constantin Schreiber, will moderate the award ceremony.

Streaming link to the virtual award ceremony: https://plus.freiheit.org/raif-badawi-award-ceremony-2021

About the Raif Badawi Award

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, together with the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, will present the Raif Badawi Award for Courageous Journalists for the seventh time in 2021. The journalism award, initiated by Badawi's wife Ensaf Haidar and TV-anchorman Constantin Schreiber, is intended to commemorate the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced in 2012 to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for his Islam-critical texts.

About the jury

An independent jury of high-ranking media representatives selected this year's winner:

Andreas Cichowicz is a German television journalist and editor-in-chief of television at NDR. He is also the presenter of the foreign magazine "Weltspiegel."

Astrid Frefel is a freelance journalist based in Cairo. She has been writing about the Arab world since 1999, mainly for media in Switzerland and Austria.

Dr. Florian Harms is a German journalist and book author. He has been editor-in-chief of Germany's largest news website, t-online.de, in Berlin since 2017.

Ensaf Haidar is the wife of Saudi writer, dissident and activist Raif Badawi. She is active as a human rights activist in exile in Canada.

David Schraven is a German journalist and founder of the non-profit research center CORRECTIV, which he heads as publisher and content director.

Contact:

Anders Mertzlufft
Pressesprecher & Leiter der Kommunikation

Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit
Fachbereich Kommunikation
Reinhardtstraße 12
10117 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 28 87 78 59
Mobil: +49 176 29451206

anders.mertzlufft@freiheit.org
www.freiheit.org

Original content of: Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit, transmitted by news aktuell