IWMF honors four women for courageous journalism

Adela Navarro Bello, general director and columnist for Zeta news magazine in Mexico, Parisa Hafezi, bureau chief for Reuters in Iran, and Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of Prachatai online newspaper in Thailand, collected this year’s Courage in Journalism awards in Los Angeles, organised by the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Journalists (L-R): Adela Navarro Bello of Mexico, Parisa Hafezi of Iran, Chiranuch Premchaiporn of Thailand, and Kate Adie of the UK attend the “21st Annual IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards” honoring women journalists at The Beverly Hills Hotel on October 24, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. The event was sponsored by The International Womens Media Foundation. (Photo by Vince Bucci/PictureGroup)

Navarro works for Zeta in Tijuana, Mexico where, along with many other parts of the country, the drug trade has empowered cartels willing to intimidate and murder journalists who investigate their operations.

The co-founder of Zeta, Hector Felix Miranda, was murdered in 1988 and co-editor Francisco Ortiz Franco was killed in 2004. Navarro, who has reported on their murders and the investigations that followed, has received death threats during her time at the magazine.

She told the IWMF after winning this year’s award that she “felt that Zeta isn’t alone. We have allies”.

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