3 Female Journalists Recieve Courage in Journalism Awards

The International Women's Media Foundation awarded Courage in Journalism awards to three female journalists, including a Tibetan blogger under constant surveillance from the Chinese government, a Columbian radio journalist, and a Tanzanian freelance journalist.

Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan writer who recorded first-hand accounts of the Chinese government crackdown on anti-government portests in Tibet in 2008, was unable to attend the luncheon to accept her award as her passport had been confiscated. In comments made during a video acceptance of her award, Woeser commented that if she had not continued to publish her blog, "the anguish of an entire people would vanish forever behind a veil of darkness."

Claudia Julieta Duque, the second award-winner, was an investigative journalist for Colombia's Radio Nizkor, and was kidnapped twice in an attempt to silence her investigations. In 2004, her suspicions were confirmed when she revealed that Columbia's secret police had tampered with evidence related to the 1999 murder of political humorist and journalist Jaime Garzon. She endured several threats to her life and her family's lives before and after her investigations were published.

The third award-winner is Vicky Ntetema, a freelance reporter working for BBC since 1991, who has been investigating the brutual murders of albinos in Tanzania by witchdoctors. Despite death threats, Ntetema continued investigating and discovered fifty-eight murdered albinos, six with amputations, three with severe injuries, and ten graves of albinos that had been robbed. Ntetema said "the witchdoctors pedal the notion that potions made with albino organs, hair and blood bring wealth." As a result of her investigation, ten men have been sentenced to death, and about two hundred witchdoctors have been arrested.