Belarusian journalist Larysa Shchyrakova among Free Media Awards winners

The Fritt Ord Foun­da­tion and the Zeit Stiftung Bucerius Foun­da­tion announced that the 2024 Free Media Awards will be pre­sent­ed to jour­nal­ists and media from Belarus, Geor­gia, Ukraine, Azer­bai­jan, Rus­sia and, for the first time, Hun­gary. Among the lau­re­ates, the name of Gomel jour­nal­ist Larysa Shchyrako­va, who is cur­rent­ly behind bars, was announced.

Lar­isa Shchi­rako­va. Archive pho­to

The Free Media Awards are intend­ed for jour­nal­ists and media in East­ern and Cen­tral Europe and are award­ed as part of a joint project between the Fritt Ord Foun­da­tion in Nor­way and the Zeit Stiftung Bucerius Foun­da­tion in Ger­many. They will be pre­sent­ed to six jour­nal­ists and media out­lets in East­ern and Cen­tral Europe in recog­ni­tion of their out­stand­ing inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism and per­son­al courage dur­ing a peri­od of great upheaval in the region. Some of the win­ners of this year’s award are cur­rent­ly in prison because of their jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties.

The award cer­e­mo­ny will take place at the Nor­we­gian Nobel Insti­tute on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2024.

Larysa Shchyrakova (Belarus)

Free­lance jour­nal­ist Larysa Shchyrako­va will receive a Free Media Award for her valiant and inde­pen­dent activ­i­ties in Belarus. She is cur­rent­ly being held as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Despite the threat of arrest ear­li­er, she con­tin­ued work­ing as a jour­nal­ist. In autumn 2023, she was sen­tenced to 3.5 years in prison in Belarus on a trumped up charge. It was alleged that she had dis­cred­it­ed Belarus and facil­i­tat­ed extrem­ism, osten­si­bly by spread­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion online.

As a free­lance jour­nal­ist, Larysa Shchyrako­va turned the spot­light on the for­got­ten vic­tims of Stal­in’s oppres­sion. She made the doc­u­men­tary ‘The Mur­dered and For­got­ten’, in which she doc­u­ment­ed the sto­ries told by the rel­a­tives of oppressed dis­si­dents.

Larysa Shchyrako­va has been a main­stay for free­lance jour­nal­ists in the Homiel region, and she has worked tena­cious­ly at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el to try to make it legal to work as a free­lance jour­nal­ist in Belarus. She her­self was the first free­lance jour­nal­ist in Belarus to be fined for alleged­ly «work­ing for for­eign media». Larysa Shchyrako­va coura­geous­ly cov­ered how Belarus dealt with the pan­dem­ic and the protests in its wake.

Nastasia Arabuli (Georgia)

Geor­gian jour­nal­ist Nas­ta­sia Arab­u­li will receive the Free Media Award for her fear­less inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism.

She has effec­tive­ly chal­lenged the pow­er struc­tures in her home coun­try by expos­ing the con­se­quences of pow­er on Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty’s Tbil­isi ser­vice. Nas­ta­sia Arab­u­li recent­ly helped con­duct­ing a major inves­ti­ga­tion into the sex­u­al abuse of sev­er­al young women in the Geor­gian Ortho­dox Church, and is con­sid­ered one of the most vocal defend­ers of LGBTQ+ rights in Geor­gia.

In con­nec­tion with the intro­duc­tion of the «For­eign Agents Law» and the protests against it in the spring of 2024, she exten­sive­ly report­ed on injus­tices com­mit­ted by the author­i­ties. Arab­u­li is cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing an impor­tant series of in-depth inter­views with polit­i­cal lead­ers, activists and civ­il soci­ety rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the run-up to the upcom­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions in Geor­gia, sched­uled for Octo­ber 26, 2024.

In recent years, Nas­ta­sia Arab­u­li has doc­u­ment­ed the sys­tem­at­ic per­se­cu­tion of inde­pen­dent voic­es in Geor­gia’s cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, draw­ing atten­tion to the author­i­ties’ strate­gies of con­trol through pro­pa­gan­da and dis­cred­it­ing cam­paigns.

In the after­math of Rus­si­a’s mas­sive inva­sion of Ukraine, Nas­ta­sia Arab­u­li used big data to uncov­er var­i­ous attempts to cir­cum­vent eco­nom­ic sanc­tions and trade restric­tions in Geor­gia, and wrote about a sus­pi­cious increase in microchip exports from the U.S. to Geor­gia par­al­lel to the war in Ukraine. Nas­ta­sia Arab­u­li her­self was among the jour­nal­ists who bore the brunt of attacks by politi­cians and gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da.

Pho­to: Tbel Abuseridze from Unsplash

Bihus.Info (Ukraine)

The jour­nal­ism col­lec­tive Bihus.Info in Ukraine will receive a Free Media Award for its in-depth, cre­ative anti-cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions and metic­u­lous doc­u­men­ta­tion of war crimes, not least from the front line.

Found­ed by the inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Denys Bihus in 2013, Bihus.Info has become a cor­ner­stone of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism in Ukraine. Its pro­grammes are pub­lished on the Bihus.Info web­site and the YouTube chan­nel of the same name.

The edi­to­r­i­al board cur­rent­ly con­sists of jour­nal­ists and ana­lysts who wield sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the polit­i­cal land­scape in Ukraine and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Their report­ing has brought tan­gi­ble results such as legal actions against cor­rupt civ­il ser­vants, polit­i­cal changes, and height­ened aware­ness of sys­tem­at­ic chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try.

In 2023, Bihus.Info was behind a series of inves­ti­ga­tions that exposed the fact that high-val­ue gov­ern­ment con­tracts were being award­ed to com­pa­nies with ties to pub­lic ser­vants. The fund­ing was actu­al­ly ear­marked for the recon­struc­tion of build­ings that had been destroyed by Russ­ian shelling.

In spring 2024, for exam­ple, Bihus.Info turned its atten­tion to Russ­ian tor­ture cham­bers in Kher­son while they were under Russ­ian occu­pa­tion. This past Jan­u­ary, Bihus.Info was attacked by the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine (SBU), which sought to dis­cred­it the jour­nal­ists and their work. In response to the inci­dent, Bihus.Info insti­gat­ed its own inves­ti­ga­tion of the attack, which proved to be ille­gal, and went on to expose inter­nal cor­rup­tion in the SBU.

Szabolcs Panyi (Hungary)

Jour­nal­ist and edi­tor Szabolcs Panyi from Hun­gary will receive a Free Media Award for his unique, untir­ing inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism. Szabolcs Panyi is a jour­nal­ist at Direkt36, a news­room based in Budapest that inves­ti­gates sen­si­tive sto­ries that the author­i­ties would pre­fer to bury.

Jour­nal­ist and edi­tor Sabolc Panyi from Hun­gary. Pho­to: Index

He is also edi­tor for Cen­tral Euro­pean inves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out by VSquare.org, a cross-bor­der inves­tiga­tive plat­form based in War­saw which brings togeth­er inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists from Poland, the Czech Repub­lic, Slo­va­kia and Hun­gary.

Panyi cov­ers cor­rup­tion, nation­al secu­ri­ty, for­eign pol­i­cy, and Russ­ian and Chi­nese influ­ence in Cen­tral and East­ern Europe. At VSquare.org this year, he has drawn atten­tion to Russ­ian and Hun­gar­i­an med­dling in Slo­vak pol­i­tics, a sto­ry pub­lished pri­or to the Slo­vak pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Last year, VSquare.org con­duct­ed a col­lab­o­ra­tive inves­ti­ga­tion enti­tled ‘Espi­omats’ about Russ­ian diplo­mats and diplo­mat­ic ser­vices involved in espi­onage in Europe.

In 2022, Szabolcs Panyi was respon­si­ble for a report in Direkt36 on Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices infil­trat­ing the IT net­works of the Hun­gar­i­an for­eign min­istry, after the gov­ern­ment had tried to keep the ongo­ing Russ­ian hack­er attacks in secret. The scan­dal returned to cen­tre stage once again a few months ago when addi­tion­al new evi­dence con­firmed Pany­i’s reports. The Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment accused Szabolcs Panyi of lying, but he is used to attacks on his char­ac­ter by gov­ern­ment-con­trolled media.

In 2021, Szabolcs Panyi report­ed on abu­sive cyber­sur­veil­lance with the Pega­sus spy­ware in a series of arti­cles for Direkt36 as a mem­ber of the inter­na­tion­al ‘Pega­sus Project’ inves­tiga­tive team, a con­sor­tium of 17 media out­lets. He him­self has been a tar­get of the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­men­t’s sur­veil­lance cam­paign against jour­nal­ists.

Abzas Media (Azerbaijan)

The inde­pen­dent Azer­bai­jani news plat­form Abzas Media will receive a Free Media Award for its deci­sive, sys­tem­at­ic inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism.

Abzas Media. Скрыншот сайта

Found­ed by a group of young activists and jour­nal­ists in 2016, Abzas Media quick­ly gained a large audi­ence on social media. These days, the media out­let is espe­cial­ly well-known for its report­ing on state cor­rup­tion. For exam­ple, the jour­nal­ists have turned a spot­light on state pro­cure­ments in con­nec­tion with the recon­struc­tion of destroyed vil­lages and cities in Karabakh.

Abzas Media expos­es fre­quent breach­es of human rights in Azer­bai­jan, while con­sis­tent­ly remain­ing true to jour­nal­is­tic prin­ci­ples when report­ing on court cas­es, the strug­gles of mar­gin­alised groups, and the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion. In autumn 2023, the Azer­bai­jani author­i­ties cracked down by arrest­ing six key jour­nal­ists and edi­tors from Abzaz Media.

They were alleged­ly charged with ‘smug­gling’ and ‘con­spir­a­cy to bring mon­ey into the coun­try ille­gal­ly’. In August, sev­en more charges were brought against the incar­cer­at­ed team mem­bers, who now face up to 12 years’ impris­on­ment. Sev­er­al of Abzas Medi­a’s part­ners were also sub­ject­ed to restric­tive mea­sures, and some of those involved in inves­ti­ga­tions were denied per­mis­sion to leave the coun­try.

In Novem­ber 2023, 15 recog­nised media insti­tu­tions joined the For­bid­den Sto­ries Con­sor­tium, where they are con­tin­u­ing to pur­sue inves­ti­ga­tions start­ed by Abzas Media.

In Feb­ru­ary 2024, the impris­oned edi­to­r­i­al team appoint­ed Azer­bai­jani inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Ley­la Mustafaye­va as inter­im edi­tor-in-chief of Abzas Media. Fol­low­ing that deci­sion, a new inves­tiga­tive team con­sist­ing of exile-based jour­nal­ists and Abzas Media announced that the plat­form will con­tin­ue its activ­i­ties from out­side Azer­bai­jan.

Mikhail Afanasiev (Russia)

Jour­nal­ist, edi­tor and pub­lish­er Mikhail Afanasiev will receive a Free Media Award for his uncom­pro­mis­ing, fear­less report­ing from Sibiria in Rus­sia.

Mikhail Afanasyev. Screen­shot of the video from the web­site novayagazeta.ru

Since found­ing the online mag­a­sine Novy Fokus two decades ago, he has dis­tin­guished him­self in the field of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism in a region char­ac­terised by ram­pant cor­rup­tion.

In autumn 2023, Mikhail Afanasiev was sen­tenced to 5.5 years’ impris­on­ment by a Russ­ian court for alleged­ly hav­ing used his posi­tion to dis­sem­i­nate false infor­ma­tion about the Russ­ian Army.

What Afanasiev actu­al­ly did was to pub­lish a report on mem­bers of the Russ­ian Nation­al Guard from his home­town of Khakas­sia, who refused to fight in Ukraine. Fur­ther, he has been banned from prac­tic­ing his pro­fes­sion for 2.5 years after com­plet­ing his prison sen­tence. Afanasiev is the first jour­nal­ist in Rus­sia to be sen­tenced under the ruth­less and hasti­ly adopt­ed amend­ment to the Crim­i­nal Code of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.

The amend­ment was intro­duced abrupt­ly in March 2022, fol­low­ing Rus­si­a’s full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine. His lawyers have brought the case before the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights. Novy Fokus is cur­rent­ly shut down in response to a request of Rus­si­a’s Fed­er­al Ser­vice for Super­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Mass Media due to ‘numer­ous breach­es’. With Novy Fokus, Mikhail Afanasiev has focused on uncov­er­ing ille­gal activ­i­ties among crim­i­nal gangs, and exposed abus­es of pow­er and the author­i­ties’ fail­ure to act. Afanasiev has been the recip­i­ent of death threats for his work as a reporter cov­er­ing cor­rup­tion and breach­es of human rights.

About the jury

All the can­di­dates were nom­i­nat­ed by inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions and organ­i­sa­tions that are active in East­ern and Cen­tral Europe, or by experts on the region. An inter­na­tion­al jury has cho­sen the prize lau­re­ates. The jury for the Free Media Awards con­sists of Alice Bota, reporter for East­ern Europe with Die ZEIT, Atti­la Mong, Berlin-based Europe rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists, Inna San­gadzhie­va, Direc­tor of Europe and Cen­tral Asia Depart­ment at the Nor­we­gian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee, Juri Durkot, Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist and trans­la­tor (Durkot abstained from the jury‘s delib­er­a­tions and vot­ing on the Russ­ian award win­ner), Mar­tin Paulsen, head of the For­eign Lan­guages Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen, and Sil­via Stöber, reporter and edi­tor for ARD Tagess­chau.