Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media 2014 for fighters for a pluralistic society

Aram Radomski, Siegbert Schefke, Roland Jahn and Christoph Wonneberger are honoured for their struggle for freedom of the press in former East Germany. Farida Nekzad will be awarded the prize for her commitment for a pluralistic society in Afghanistan. With this award, the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig public savings bank honours five individuals who have committed their work for an independent reporting in different ways but always under great personal commitment and with danger to their personal health. The award is endowed with 30.000 Euros and will be handed over personally to the laureates in Leipzig on 8 October.

“Farida Nekzad fights a similar struggle for the freedom of the press in today’s Afghanistan. Since many years, but especially within the last months and in the advance of the presidential elections, she gives a voice to the Afghan public and especially the Afghan women with her reporting and her institutional work e.g. by founding an independent news agency. She puts up with attacks which even culminated in death threads, although she was offered to leave her home country several times”, Seeger added.

“The 25th anniversary of the ‘Peaceful Revolution’ of 1989, which – starting from Leipzig – led to significant changes not only in Germany but in whole Europe, prompted the jury to honour four actors of those events as a group with the Leipzig Media Award vicariously for the thousands of protestors. The demand for an independent reporting, for free media and a pluralistic society were key demands of the civil rights activists and protestors during the Leipzig Monday Demonstrations. Aram Radomski, Siegbert Schefke, Roland Jahn and Christoph Wonneberger were amongst those who formulated these demands and provided them publicity by their courage and intelligence. Thereby, they contributed to an opposing public in formerEast Germany which undermined the monopoly of opinion of the ruling communist party SED”, said Stephan Seeger, Managing Director of the Foundation.

Since 2001, the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig awards its “Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media” to journalists, publishers and institutions who show a strong personal commitment to the freedom and future of the media. The prize is also intended to keep alive the memory of the Peaceful Revolution of October 9, 1989 in Leipzig, when protesters demanded “a free press for a free country.”

More information at www.leipziger-medienstiftung.de.