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Angolan activist Marques de Morais honoured

Wednesday May 23 2018
Morais

Angolan journalist and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais. ARNALDO VIEIRA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By ARNALDO VIEIRA

Angolan journalist and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais has been named the 2018 World Press Freedom Hero award winner.

The International Press Institute (IPI) confirmed Mr Morais as the winner of the 70th prize in a statement released on Tuesday.

IPI said the journalist had braved decades of harassment and prosecution to expose corruption and human rights abuses in Angola.

IPI Executive Director Barbara Trionfi hailed Mr Mr Morais for his dedication to the pursuit of truth in an unforgiving environment for press freedom.

High-level corruption

“Despite Angola’s systematic repression of independent media, Rafael Marques has managed – at great personal risk – to bravely and persistently shine a light on abuse of power at the highest levels,” Ms Trionfi was quoted saying.

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Mr Morais, 47, and a graduate of Goldsmiths, University of London and Oxford University, also won the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy Award 2017.

He was quoted as welcoming the award as “wonderful news”.

“I am honoured because this award comes at a time when I am on trial for exposing high-level corruption, while President (Joao) Lourenço claims to be fighting it.”

Mr Morais has also received the Allard Prize for International Integrity and the Train Foundation’s Civil Courage Prize and several international awards for his reporting on conflict diamonds and government corruption.

RELATED CONTENT: Angolan activist Morais denied visa to Canada

He runs the anti-corruption website Maka Angola.

The Angolan started work as a journalist in 1992 at the state-owned newspaper Jornal de Angola.

Mr Morais is the first IPI World Press Freedom Hero from Angola, and the third from the Portuguese-speaking world, after Portugal’s Nuno Rocha and Brazil’s Júlio de Mesquita Neto.

The 2017 prize was given to Ethiopian journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega, who spent nearly six years in prison on suspect anti-terror charges before being freed in February 2018.

Fear of retaliation

IPI’s World Press Freedom Hero award honours journalists who have made significant contributions to the promotion of press freedom, particularly in the face of great personal risk.

The institution is a global network of editors, journalists and media executives who share a common dedication to quality, independent journalism. It promotes the conditions that allow journalism to fulfill its public function, the most important of which is the ability to operate free from interference and without fear of retaliation.

Mr Morais's prize will be presented on June 22 in Abuja, Nigeria during IPI’s annual World Congress and General Assembly.

For the past four years, both awards have been given in partnership with Copenhagen-based International Media Support.


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