Columnist Reeyot Alemu has been awarded the 2013 UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, according to the press release on UNESCO website. (read the full text at the bottom)

However, Ethiopian opposition activists are worried of health condition claiming that the prison administration is denying her proper medical care.

Activist Kirubel Teshome reported on his facebook account that:

Jailed Ethiopian woman Journalist, Reeyot Alemu was less cheerful than she used to be when we visited her yesterday, April 7, 2013.

She looks so tense and worried about her health and the ill treatment she is having in prison.

She went to medical checkup on March 19 where her new doctor, who has no follow up of her case and hardly knows her medical history, ordered for another appointment after three months.

However hard she insisted to know the exact appointment date, she is totally made out of the loop and it is still held a secret by the prison guards and management. The guard who escorted her to hospital told her that she received the appointment date but she is not ordered to tell her when.

Reeyot told us that she formally complained to Prison administrator about the lack of proper medical attention she should be having and impartial treatment of the rights to her education she is not yet allowed to enroll.

The prison administrators heard her appeals and grievances but instead of relieving her from the additional burden of injustice they formally charged her with an alleged accusation of not respecting and abiding prison rules and guards. Such charges utmost are punishable to solitary confinement with no permission to visitors, even close relatives.

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Here is the press release from UNESCO this week:

Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu wins 2013 UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
(April 16, 2013)

Imprisoned Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu is the winner of the 2013 UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Ms Alemu was recommended by an independent international jury of media professionals in recognition of her “exceptional courage, resistance and commitment to freedom of expression.”

The Jury took note of Reeyot Alemu’s contribution to numerous and independent publications. She wrote critically about political and social issues, focusing on the root causes of poverty, and gender equality. She worked for several independent media. In 2010 she founded her own publishing house and a monthly magazine called Change, both of which were subsequently closed. In June 2011, while working as a regular columnist for Feteh, a national weekly newspaper, Ms Alemu was arrested. She is currently serving a five year sentence in Kality prison.

The UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was created in 1997 by UNESCO’s Executive Board. It is awarded annually during the celebration of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, which will take place this year in Costa Rica.

The Prize honours the work of an individual or an organization which has made a notable contribution to the defence and /or promotion of freedom of expression anywhere in the world, especially if risks have been involved. Candidates are proposed by UNESCO Member States, and regional or international organizations active in the fields of journalism and freedom of expression. Laureates are chosen by a jury whose members are appointed for a once renewable three-year term by the Director-General of UNESCO.

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